MIDDLE EAST:POLICE LOYAL to Hamas yesterday detained senior figures of the Fatah movement in the Gaza Strip, ratcheting up tensions caused by tit-for-tat arrests by both sides.
In early-morning raids, the police rounded up 17 Fatah figures, including Zakaria al-Agha, a member of the executive committee of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation, and Gaza governor Muhammad al-Qudra, the two most senior representatives in Gaza of Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas.
Mr Abbas appointed the two to run Fatah's affairs in Gaza after Hamas seized control there in June 2007.
Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said the arrests were in response to the detention of Hamas political leaders in the West Bank.
However, another claimed that the detentions were part of a criminal investigation into an explosion in Gaza on July 25th that killed five members of Hamas's military wing and a four-year-old girl. Hamas blamed Fatah and arrested about 200 Fatah activists and supporters.
Fatah denied the accusation and detained a similar number of Hamas figures, including academics, mosque preachers and officials.
Although Mr Abbas issued an order on Thursday to free all Hamas men, only four were in the first group to be released.
The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights expressed its grave concern "over the continuous deterioration of human rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territory caused by Palestinian security services in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including attacks against civil society organisations, political arrest campaigns and attacks against journalists".
It noted that Hamas had blocked distribution of Palestinian newspapers printed in the West Bank. Hamas is also charged with attempting to intimidate journalists since Sawah Abu Seif, a Palestinian cameraman for German television, was snatched from his home and held for five days during the round-up of Fatah activists.
While both factions have been raiding and closing each other's institutions, Hamas accuses Fatah of collaborating with Israel to eradicate Hamas's well-developed network of social, educational and welfare organisations in the West Bank. Many have been shut down, imposing great hardship on poor West Bankers.
