Hamas insignia in Ramallah (Hoheit, CC BY-SA 2.0 DE, via Wikimedia Commons).
Members of the Hamas terror group planned to seize control of a Palestinian security installation near Ramallah, Palestinian sources claimed this week.
The allegation coincides with the fifteenth anniversary of Hamas’s violent takeover of the Gaza Strip, which saw the Palestinian Territories split between Islamist Hamas in Gaza and the Palestinian Authority, led by Fatah president Mahmoud Abbas, in the West Bank.
Hamas controls the Gaza Strip and seeks to destroy Israel, rejecting a two-state solution altogether.
The Jerusalem Post reported that PA security forces recently discovered a weapons cache and tunnel near the headquarters of a Palestinian security site in the town of Beitunia, west of Ramallah.
At least 19 members of Hamas were arrested in connection with the weapons and the tunnel.
The Hamas terrorists are suspected of planning to infiltrate and seize control of the security installation.
In a statement, president Abbas’s Fatah party warned that Hamas was “proceeding with its attempts and conspiracies to control the West Bank”.
The statement went on to accuse Hamas of preparing to carry out “sabotage attacks” in the West Bank in order to undermine the Palestinian Authority.
At least 7 attempts by a number of Arab countries to reconcile Hamas and Fatah through negotiation have failed since 2007.