BICOM

A Hamas-run court in the Gaza Strip yesterday sentenced eight activists from the rival Fatah faction to prison sentences, undermining recent moves towards establishing a Palestinian unity government.

A statement released by the Hamas Interior Ministry said: “The special military court… sentenced eight individuals today for undermining revolutionary unity.”

Few details of the cases were published, but the same statement claimed that those found guilty had collected information on “the resistance factions, its structures, and tunnels,” noting that four of those convicted began their activity in 2014.

Three of those convicted were sentenced to life imprisonment with hard labour, while the remainder received similar sentences of between seven and ten years.

Gaza-based Fayez Abu Eitah, co-vice chairman of the Fatah Revolutionary Council, condemned the sentences.

He said: “We forcefully deplore and denounce the Hamas court’s ruling in Gaza, which came at the expense of eight Fatah members, on the basis of false and absurd claims.”

Abu Eitah added: “These rulings are arbitrary and political… and are a part of Hamas’s continued provocations against the Palestinian people”.

The court sentences come just a week after Hamas and Fatah announced their agreement on a formula for establishing a Palestinian unity government, following talks between the two factions in Moscow.

The agreement is reported to allow all factions to join the Palestine Liberation Organisation’s (PLO) institutions, form a new Palestinian National Council and then to elect the PLO Executive Committee, one of the top Palestinian decision-making bodies. At the same time, all factions were to work towards forming a new government during the next two months.

Ever since Hamas violently seized the Gaza Strip from the Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority (PA) in 2007, relations between Hamas and Fatah have been bitter.

There have been several attempts at reconciliation between the two factions in the past several years, including agreements to form a unity government, but none have come to fruition. The  PA exclusively administers the Palestinian areas of the West Bank, while Hamas is in sole control of the Gaza Strip.