Hamas condemns escalated PA arrest campaigns in West Bank

Member of Hamas’s Political Bureau Husam Badran on Monday called on the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority (PA) to stop its arrest campaigns which have been stepped up over the past week against the Movement’s supporters in the West Bank.

Badran said in a press statement that the frenzied arrest campaigns waged by the PA security forces against the Hamas-affiliated Palestinians in the West Bank followed the PA president Mahmoud Abbas’s latest speech which was aimed at undermining the reconciliation efforts.

Badran added that the PA security forces’ practices against the West Bank Palestinians are no less heinous that the practices of the Israeli occupation, noting that these campaigns include violent break-ins into Palestinian houses, searches and arrests without legal or judicial orders.

The Hamas official stressed the importance of achieving national reconciliation to foil the US-Israeli schemes aimed at liquidating the Palestinian cause.

He continued to say that the PA should stop providing “free services” to the Israeli occupation and called for a serious action by all Palestinian factions against the PA violations in the West Bank.