The sources said thousands of suspected Hamas supporters have been
dismissed over the last two years. In an assertion confirmed by a PA
official, the purge was said to have included teachers, Muslim clerics and
administrators in PA ministries.
Many of the Islamist civil servants began their employment with the PA
when Hamas captured the Palestinian Legislative Council and key ministries
in elections in 2006. The sources said PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas has ordered a purge of
Hamas supporters throughout government, schools and PA-financed mosques.
Abbas has also ordered the prosecution of Hamas operatives, particularly
those accused of being part of the Islamist military network. The sources
said PA military courts have begun sentencing some of the estimated 500
Hamas detainees, many of them held for more than two years without trial or
formal charges.
Some of the Hamas operatives were detained within weeks of being
released by Israel. They included such operatives as Mohammed Fataftah and
Wajdi Abu Sneineh and Zeid Al Juneidi, all from Hebron and arrested by PA
security services on March 28.
The number of Hamas supporters dismissed from the PA has not been
disclosed by the Abbas regime. The Jerusalem Post quoted Palestinian sources
as saying that more than 1,000 teachers and 300 clerics have been fired,
many of them with no links to Hamas. In some cases, the civil servants were
dismissed after refusing to spy on suspected Hamas supporters for PA
intelligence services.
"Many of them were fired because they don't support Fatah and the
Palestinian Authority," a Palestinian source told the Post. "Others were
fired because they had become too religious, and there was fear that they
would one day join Hamas."
A PA official has confirmed the purge of suspected Hamas loyalists. He
said the firings were ordered by the PA Preventive Security Apparatus and
General Intelligence Services as well as PA Religious Affairs Minister
Mahmoud Habash, a former Hamas member who today oversees nearly 1,000
mosques in the West Bank.
