By KHALED ABU TOAMEHAnan Subuh nablus funeral 248 88(photo credit: )
Fatah officials in the West Bank demanded on Saturday that the Palestinian Authority put an end to security coordination with Israel, after the IDF killed three Al-Aksa Martyrs Brigades operatives who were behind the Thursday shooting attack that killed Meir Chai.
Some even claimed that the killing of the three Fatah operatives was carried out thanks to information provided by PA security forces in Nablus.
Following the shooting attack that killed Rabbi Chai, PA security forces arrested more than 120 suspects for interrogation.
Husam Khader, a top Fatah operative from the nearby Balata refugee camp, said many Palestinians were convinced that PA security services were involved, directly or indirectly, in the pre-dawn Nablus raid. Many Palestinians were also "very angry because of continued security coordination between the PA security forces and the IDF," he said.
Khader said Palestinians were also wondering why the PA security forces had disappeared from the streets of the city before and during the IDF operation.
Hamas claimed that the IDF raid was the "fruit" of 48 hours of security coordination between the PA and Israel in the aftermath of Chai's murder. Yusef Farhat, a spokesman for Hamas, said that Abbas's security forces tipped off Israel about the identity and whereabouts of the three Fatah men.
The Aksa Martyrs Brigades vowed to avenge the killing of its senior operatives.
The PA and Hamas strongly condemned the killing of the three Fatah men and expressed fear that the operation signaled the beginning of a period of escalation orchestrated by the government of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. At least 20,000 mourners, chanting anti-Israel slogans, participated in the funerals of the three operatives.
A leaflet distributed by the group accused Israel of cold-bloodedly killing the three men in a "cowardly" operation.
"By assassinating these martyrs, Israel has opened the gates of hell," the leaflet read. "Our activists won't remain idle as the blood of our warriors is being shed."
The group said that from now on Israel would see only "the language of blood and fire and our suicide attackers will come from every place to turn [Israel's] night into daylight."
Israel, the group continued, "will regret its crime because we don't ignore the blood of our martyrs and the response will come very soon."
Nabil Abu Rudaineh, a spokesman for PA President Mahmoud Abbas, said that the Nablus raid, as well as the killing of three Palestinians from the Gaza Strip who tried to cross the border into Israel, showed that Israel "does not want peace."
"The policy of assassinations and the indiscriminate killings reveal that Israel has decided to destroy the stability and security of the Palestinians," Abu Rudaineh said.
"Israel is seeking to drag our people into a new cycle of violence to avoid growing international pressure on the Israeli government to fulfill its obligations toward the peace process."
The spokesman said that Israel was also seeking to destroy the "achievements" made by the PA in the West Bank and to scrap the cease-fire with Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
Yasser Abed Rabbo, a senior PLO official and a close adviser to Abbas, accused Israel of "returning to its policy of executing innocent Palestinians and members of the Palestinian security forces." Abed Rabbo claimed that Israel was preparing for a "comprehensive and bloody terror campaign" against the Palestinians and the PA.
He added that Saturday's events were in the context of Israel's attempt to distract attention for its "bigger crimes - the demolition of houses in Jerusalem and the construction of the racist wall."
PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad said that the Nablus operation was intended to destroy his government's efforts to restore law and order to the city. He too accused Israel of escalating tensions to avoid fulfilling its obligations under the terms of the road map for peace in the Middle East.
Fayyad and commanders of the PA security forces visited the families of the three Fatah gunmen to offer condolences.
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