Hamas Supporters Decry Pa Arrest Of W. Bank Activist

Supporters of Hamas movement on Sunday staged a rally in Gaza City to protest the arrest of a student member of the group by the Palestinian Authority's (PA) security forces in the West Bank.



"Fatah is trying to uproot Hamas politically in the West Bank," Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said during the Sunday rally.



Abu Zuhri also accused Fatah of "complicity" in an eight-year Israeli blockade on the Gaza Strip.



On Saturday, Hamas said that the PA's security forces detained Gehad Selim, a student activist who represents the group's bloc in the West Bank's Birzeit University.



Selim's arrest came three days after his bloc won the university's student union elections for the first time since Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip in 2007.



The student bloc has condemned Selim's "politically-motivated" arrest, describing the incident as the "latest in the West Bank's security forces' repressive practices."



Hamas and Fatah signed a reconciliation deal almost one year ago aimed at ending seven years of divisions.



That division had led to two rival seats of Palestinian government – one in Gaza and one in Ramallah– after Hamas routed pro-Fatah forces in 2007 and took control of the Gaza Strip.



The Ramallah-based unity government, however, has yet to assume full political responsibility for the blockaded Gaza Strip amid an ongoing war of words between the rival factions.



The Hamas-Fatah rift has exacerbated the already-critical situation in the coastal enclave, which was the target of an Israeli military offensive last summer in which more than 2,160 Gazans were killed, mostly civilians, and much of the strip's infrastructure was destroyed.



www.aa.com.tr/en - Gazze