By Xinhua,
GAZA/RAMALLAH : Gaza ruler Hamas on Monday blamed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas over the death of a Hamas detainee in the West Bank, threatening not to engage in any dialogue with Fatah movement unless all Hamas activists are freed.
“Abbas shoulders the legal and national responsibility of the wild acts of his security forces that have no job except protecting the (Israeli) occupation soldiers and settlers and chasing down on the resistance,” said Ahmed Bahar, deputy speaker of the Hamas-dominated Parliament, in a statement faxed to the media.
Mohammed al-Hajj, 30, died Sunday in a prison run by the Preventive Security Forces in the West Bank city of Jenin, two days after he was arrested.
The Palestinian National Authority said he committed suicide but Hamas insisted he died due to torture.
The death of al-Hajj, who was held five times by the Palestinian forces, came as Fatah loyal to Abbas accused Hamas of cracking down against its supporters and activists in the Gaza Strip during and after the Israeli offensive which ended last month.
After Hamas drove out pro-Abbas forces and seized the Gaza Strip in June 2007, the two sides clamped down against their political dissidents, Hamas supporters in the West Bank and Fatah partisans in Gaza.
The latest incident spaced out chances of settling Hamas-Fatah feud through dialogue. Ra’fat Nassif, a Hamas official based in the West Bank, said there will be no reconciliation talks with Fatah “unless the prisoners in the West Bank are cleaned.”