Hamas warns PA of any financial dues cutoff for Gaza services

Aug 5, 2009, 16:56 GMT

Gaza City - Hamas Wednesday warned Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas against cutting off finances to the Gaza Strip.

The warning came amid another peak in tension between rival Palestinian camps, following Hamas' refusal to allow members of Abbas' Fatah movement to leave Gaza and attend Fatah's first party conference in 20 years, being held in the West Bank city of Bethlehem.

Cutting off funding to education, health and social welfare services in Gaza 'would reinforce the operations of looting and blackmail in the West Bank,' the de-facto Hamas government in Gaza said in a statement faxed to reporters.

Earlier media reports quoted senior officials in Abbas' West Bank- based administration as threatening to cut off such funding.

The officials said the action would be the first tough action against the radical Islamist movement, for banning the travel of some 400 Gaza Fatah delegates to Bethlehem.

Hamas had seized control of the Gaza Strip in June 2007, by violently routing Fatah-dominated security forces under the command of Abbas.

Despite the Gaza take-over, the Palestinian Authority has continued paying the salaries of 70,000 social servants and financing other health and education services.

Chief of Hamas government press office Hassan Abu Hashish said 'the threats to cut off the financial dues are not new. It is a continuation of their way of fighting people through their income and bread-winning.'

The PA receives its funds from several Arab and foreign donors.

'We believe that these donations and funds that Abbas' authority is receiving are the right of all the Palestinian people. If they stop it, it means that they are stealing it for themselves,' said Abu Hashish.