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Ramallah, West Bank: Hamas warned its Fatah rivals on Tuesday that a crackdown against the Islamist group by forces loyal to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas could spark a revolt in the occupied West Bank.
A senior Palestinian security official in Ramallah dismissed the threats by "irresponsible people".
Abbas's security forces have detained at least 150 Hamas supporters in the West Bank in response to a sweep in the Gaza Strip, where Hamas seized nearly 200 Fatah sympathisers after a bomb blast killed five Hamas militants and a girl on Friday.
Hamas blamed the bombing on Fatah, which denies involvement.
In Gaza City, Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said the crackdown in the West Bank could trigger a revolt.
"This will only lead to a new uprising against the [Israeli] occupation and its security agents," he said in a mocking reference to Abbas's Palestinian National Authority forces.
Hamas often taunts Abbas and Fatah for their commitment to US-sponsored peace talks with Israel, which controls the West Bank, while allowing a role for Palestinian security forces.
"Now the Zionists [Israelis] are protecting you," Hamas said in a separate statement addressed to security forces in the West Bank. "You know that once the protection of the Zionists is over, people will enter your headquarters and kick you out."
The West Bank security official said of Hamas's threats: "If they can take these headquarters, what are they waiting for? Why is it allowed for them to kill and arrest people in Gaza?"
The official, who asked not to be named, said the measures targeted illegal weapons and lawbreakers, not Hamas. "Many Hamas figures who abide by the law are not arrested," he said.
He would not say how many people had been arrested since Friday, but said many detainees had been released. Hamas also says it has freed about half of those it had rounded up.
However, jails were overflowing in the West Bank city of Jenin, where a Palestinian security source said the arrest campaign had slowed because there was no more room in the cells.
He said at least 70 suspected Hamas supporters had been detained in Jenin alone.
ending rift
cairo dialogue
Officials from Hamas group are travelling to Cairo for talks with Egyptian officials on a prisoner exchange with Israel and ways of ending a yearlong rift with Fatah.
Hamas political bureau member Mohammad Nasr says he and the group's deputy leader Mousa Abu Marzouk was to travel yesterday to Egypt where they also will discuss the group's fragile truce with Israel and crossings into the Gaza Strip.
- AP
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