Hamas bans Fatah celebrations

Decision is taken despite recent rapprochement between the two rival Palestinian political parties.

By KHALED ABU TOAMEH
Female Hamas security forces graduation 311 (R) (photo credit: Ismail Zaydah/Reuters)
Female Hamas security forces graduation 311 (R)
(photo credit: Ismail Zaydah/Reuters)
The Hamas government decided Tuesday to ban Fatah’s 47th anniversary celebrations in the Gaza Strip, Fatah spokesman Fayez Abu Eitah said.
The decision to ban the celebrations was taken despite the recent rapprochement between the two rival parties.
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Abu Eitah said he was called Tuesday to Hamas’s internal security apparatus, where police officers informed him of the decision.
Hamas has prohibited Fatah celebrations in the Gaza Strip since 2007, when the Islamist movement seized control of the area.
Abu Eitah said he was summoned by Hamas shortly after he gave an interview to the Al-Jazeera network on the Fatah anniversary and efforts to end the dispute between the two sides.
Fatah condemned the ban as a breach of the reconciliation process with Hamas.
Fatah also called on Hamas to release all political detainees who are being held in its prisons, and to stop harassing political opponents.
In the past few days, Hamas security forces summoned 19 Fatah activists for interrogation, a Fatah official charged.
Nine other activists were detained last weekend and are being subjected to various forms of torture, the official said.
Hamas, for its part, denied that Abu Eitah had been detained. The Hamas Ministry of Interior called on Fatah to stop “poisoning the atmosphere of reconciliation by issuing false allegations.”