Ramallah - A group of Hamas militants tracked the movements
of Mahmoud Abbas with the 'clear' intention of assassinating the
Palestinian president, senior sources in Abbas' Fatah party told an
Israeli newspaper Friday.
The Hamas members were caught with weapons, maps and photographs
of senior officials in Abbas' West Bank-based administration, which
showed he and others had been under surveillance, the sources told
Haaretz.
The Hamas members belong to a West Bank cell whose arrest was
announced by Palestinian Authority (PA) Secretary-General Tayeb Abdel
Rahim in a news conference in Ramallah on Monday.
Palestinian security officials would not comment on the Haaretz
claim that Abbas himself had been among the cell's targets. They
told the German Press Agency that the investigation against the Hamas
cell was ongoing and they were unable to discuss the case until its
completion.
Hamas, the Islamist movement ruling Gaza, and Fatah, the secular
party of Abbas, have been locked in an at-times-bloody power
struggle.
The rivalry erupted after Hamas unexpectedly beat Fatah in 2006
parliamentary elections. It peaked in 2007, when Hamas violently
seized sole control of Gaza by storming the headquarters of Abbas'
Fatah-dominated security forces throughout the strip.
The sides have been holding Egyptian-mediated talks in Cairo,
in a bid to reconcile their differences and allow new elections to
take place by January 2010.
'Hamas' intention was to scuttle the reconciliation talks in
Cairo and to create chaos in the West Bank, in contrast to the sense
of security that has characterized the territory for the past two
years,' Fatah spokesman Fahmi Zarir told Haaretz.
Sources in Abbas' West Bank administration, speaking on
condition of anonymity to Haaretz, charged that his security sources
have detailed confessions in which the suspects acknowledged planning
to assassinate several PA officials and stated they were observing
Abbas' movements.
A spokesman for Hamas' military wing, the Qassam Brigades, has
denied the allegations. The movement charged that a group within
Fatah was fabricating allegations against Hamas in a bid to damage
its reputation and justify ongoing arrests of its members in the West
Bank.
Hamas noted the arrests were announced on the same day of a
session in Cairo and claimed that the announcement was a bid to
undermine the reconciliation dialogue.
Abbas himself had confirmed in an interview earlier this week that
his security forces had arrested a Hamas cell which had been planning
to attack senior officials in his administration. He did not mention
in the interview that he was among those being followed by the cell.
According to Hamas, more than 900 of its members are currently
detained by Abbas' security forces in the West Bank, after more than
100 were arrested over the last few days alone.
Fatah for its part says that Hamas is holding more than 500 of its
members in its prisons in Gaza, arresting more than 270 Fatah
supporters in the Strip over the past days.
Mutual promises by the rival Palestinian camps to release each
other's prisoners as part of the reconciliation attempts have come to
nought.
Tensions in the West Bank have risen since three officers of
Abbas' security forces, two Hamas gunmen and a house owner were
killed in a shoot-out in the city of Qalqilya in late March.
Observers say Abbas' continues to crack down against Hamas in the
West Bank amid lingering fears its militants may stage a 'coup' in
that territory similar to its take-over of Gaza in June 2007.
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