PA minister: Mosques to fight anarchy
Interior minister: Hamas government to make use of sermons to counter intra-Palestinian clashes
Speaking to journalists in Gaza, Siyam addressed attempts to calm down intra-Palestinian clashes that erupted in the wake of the killing of a senior Popular Resistance Committees member on Friday. Khalil al-Quqa died after his car exploded in Gaza City.
The assassination led to clashes after the Resistance Committee charged PA officials collaborated with Israel in the operation. Three Palestinians died in the ensuing riots and about thirty were wounded.
The IDF said it was not connected to al-Quqa's killing.
The Palestinian minister also spoke about the issue of integrating Hamas’ military wing into the ranks of the PA security forces. Siyam said for the time being he intends to only implement changes in the leadership of the security forces in order to make it more varied.
“The goal of the change is to improve the performance of the security forces on the one hand and on to honor commanders who served the homeland. For the time being, there is no concrete proposal to integrate Hamas activists into the Palestinian security forces," he said.
According to Siyam, he intends to set new guidelines for implementing law and order in the Palestinian territories: “The law will be implemented when it comes to every man and every official, and we will not belittle this issue until Palestinian citizens feel the change.”
Siyam did not speak about the possibility of cooperating with Israel and its security establishment. In the meantime, Hamas’ handling of the Interior Ministry, which controls all the security forces, is being closely monitored in the PA. Palestinian civilians want to see how the heads of the security forces will respond to orders handed down by the new Hamas Interior Minister, and especially how they will implement decisions to make changes in the leadership of the forces, which have always been dominated by Fatah.
