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Palestine
Fayyad: IDF West Bank raids sabotage Palestinian security efforts
By The Associated Press
Jul 10, 2008, 17:48
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Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad warned on Wednesday that Israeli military operations in the West Bank were hampering his administration's effort to improve security in the territory.
Earlier in the day, Israel Defense Forces troops raided the city hall of the West Bank town of Nablus, confiscating five computers as part of an ongoing crackdown on Hamas' civilian and social infrastructure in the West Bank. This week, troops have raided and shut down various Nablus facilities with links to the militant organization that rules the Gaza Strip.
"The operations undermine grossly our efforts aimed at rebuilding our capacity and reestablishing law and order," Fayyad told a news conference in the West Bank city of Ramallah with Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini.
A strong Palestinian security presence in the West Bank is an integral part of peace talks between Israel and Fayyad's West Bank government, which resumed last year. Israel is reluctant to rely on a recently beefed-up Palestinian police force to head off attacks on Israel or prevent Hamas from seizing control of the West Bank, as it did the Gaza Strip last year.
Nablus' deputy mayor Hafez Shaheen said Wednesday that in addition to the raid on city hall, IDF troops raided six mosques and seized five buses belonging to schools affiliated with the Islamic organization that rules Gaza.
Nablus' mayor, Adli Yaish, is a Hamas politician who has been imprisoned by Israel. On Monday, the IDF shut down a multiple storey shopping center in Nablus whose board of directors is chaired by Yaish.
Businesses planned a general strike Wednesday to protest the crackdown.
The IDF had no immediate comment. But this week, troops have raided and shut down various Nablus facilities it says are linked to Hamas.
On Tuesday, the IDF also shut down five other Hamas institutions in the northern West Bank city, including a support group for militants jailed in Israel, an Islamic trade union organization, a medical society and two aid organizations in the Nablus refugee camps of Askar and Balata.
On Monday, security sources said that Defense Minister Ehud Barak had recently outlawed 36 international non-governmental bodies, charging them with fundraising for Hamas.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1000467.html
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