Hamas gunmen in Abbas’ Gaza home
Photo: AP
‘Fatah officers cooperated with Hamas in Gaza’
Palestinian security official says officers received money from Hamas in exchange for transferring information on deployment of Palestinian Authority forces in Strip
"Dozens of officers in the (Fatah-affiliated) security forces are suspected of cooperating with Hamas during the Islamist group’s takeover of the Gaza Strip,” a senior Palestinian security official said Sunday.
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Associated Press
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According to the official, some senior officers have been suspected of cooperating with Hamas even prior to the decisive round of clashes with Fatah. He said the officers received money from Hamas in exchange for transferring information on the deployment of Palestinian Authority forces in the Strip.
Hamas gunmen in Preventive Security Forces headquarters (archive photo: Reuters)
The official added that suspicions grew when the positions of forces loyal to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas fell to Hamas gunmen one after the other without much resistance.
“These suspicions were in the air, but during the fighting the extent of Hamas’ infiltration into the Palestinian security forces became abundantly clear,” the official said.
“This infiltration would not have been possible without the officers’ cooperation.”
The senior security official also said that dozens of other Fatah members were being accused of careless behavior during the fighting and of shirking responsibility.
“This hurt the soldiers’ ability to fight Hamas,” he said. “This infiltration and the cooperation from Fatah officers significantly aided Hamas’ revolt.”
On Friday Abbas sacked a top security chief who commanded the forces routed by Hamas over accusations of negligence and incompetence, but the security official told Ynet that the move was aimed at concealing the suspicions regarding the officers’ cooperation.
He said the officers, most of who are still in Gaza, were facing major disciplinary measures.
Rashid Abu Shbak, the officer who was fired by Abbas, issued a statement saying he was a scapegoat and that the forces under his command were defeated after being subject to massive fire by Hamas gunmen.
He added that morale was low after the fighters had not received their salaries for over a year-and-a-half.
“This battle was lost to begin with, because the members of the Palestinian security forces were not trained to kill their brothers,” he said.
