Hamas Accuses Palestinian Authority Of Sending Disguised Troops To Secure Aid Trucks To Northern Gaza
JAKARTA - The militant group Hamas has accused its rival Palestinian Authority (PA), which is dominated by Fatah, of sending security officers to northern Gaza disguisedly, to secure aid trucks, the Hamas-run Gaza Interior Ministry said.
A senior official from the Hamas Interior Ministry told Al-Aqsa TV the mission of the troops was supervised by Majed Faraj, chief intelligence of the Palestinian Authority.
It said six members of the troops, who escorted aid trucks coming through the Rafah crossing with Egypt, were arrested and police forces were chasing to arrest all other members.
"Suspicious security forces who entered yesterday in Egyptian Crescent trucks coordinated their operations entirely with the occupation force (Israel)," Hamas officials said, without providing evidence.
The statement posted by Hamas' Al-Aqsa TV on his Telegram account said police officers and militant faction fighters were instructed to treat any troops entering Gaza without coordinating with them, as "restriction forces."
This allegation is denied by a Palestinian Authority.
"The statement of the Hamas Interior Ministry regarding the entry of aid into the Gaza Strip is not true," a Palestinian Authority official in Ramallah, Israel's occupied West Bank, said in a statement.
The official, referring to the Israeli-Hamas conflict, said authorities were not interested in the exchange of media comments that would distract from "the suffering of our people in the Gaza Strip, as well as the killings, hungers and evacuations they underwent."
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It is known that Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip in 2007, a year after a major election victory, following a brief civil war with the security forces of the Palestinian Authority (PA). Efforts to reconcile the two sides have so far failed due to the complicated power-sharing issue.
Hamas leaders vowed that any attempt to get the group out of the Gaza government after the war ended was a "delution."