RAMALLAH, December 23 (JMCC) - Tensions rose Wednesday between Fatah and Hamas, the two main Palestinian political factions, over a leaked American diplomatic cable. There have been ongoing accusations by each side regarding arrests and statements.
Gen. Adnan Damiri, spokesman for the security services of the Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, called a news conference and said that Hamas rockets, rocket launchers and automatic weapons had been found in Ramallah and Nablus. This was evidence, he said, of plans by Hamas to attack fellow Palestinians.
“The security institutions are carefully considering the seriousness of the incitements to killing and the chaos that the illegal Hamas militias and leadership are carrying out in Gaza and Damascus,” he said, referring to the movement’s leaders, who are divided between Gaza and Damascus, Syria.
Earlier, Fatah denied the assertions of a cable from 2007 released by WikiLeaks, in which the head of the Israeli Shin Bet security service, Yuval Diskin, is quoted as saying that Fatah forces asked Israel to attack Hamas in Gaza and that the Palestinian Authority shared its intelligence with Israel.
“They are approaching a zero-sum situation, and yet they ask us to attack Hamas,” Mr. Diskin was quoted as saying. “We have never seen this before. They are desperate.”
In a statement, Fatah said that none of its members had ever acted in that way and that the leak was part of a Shin Bet plot to undermine the Palestinian Authority.
General Damiri added that WikiLeaks should not be taken as truth without verification. “I wonder what Diskin was talking about,” he said.
Hamas officials said the leaked cable proved that the Palestinian Authority was and remained a collaborator with Israel.
Read more at the New York Times…