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Reporting on the Middle East, Science, and Education for June 1, 2009 - ט' סיון תשס"ט
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Ma’an News Agency, May 31, 2009
Ramallah – Ma’an – The Palestinian Authority’s (PA) security spokesperson Adnan Ad-Dimeiri said that the Hamas gunmen who engaged in a deadly shootout with security forces on Sunday were heavily armed had planned to attack the PA.
Two Hamas men, three PA security officers and a bystander were killed in the firefight that took place when the officers went into arrest the fighters.
“The weapons the two [Hamas] activists used are similar to those used by Israeli soldiers, M16s, and they also possessed bombs which the security forces themselves do not have such. We found large amounts of explosives,” said Ad-Dimeiri, noting that the Hamas fighters had enough ammunition to keep fighting from Saturday night long into the hours of Sunday morning.
Ad-Dimeiri, speaking at a press conference in Ramallah, vowed to continue a crackdown on illegal weapons and what he called “illegal gangs operating against Palestinian security.”
Ad-Dimeiri also disclosed that the PA told residents of the Kfar Saba neighborhood, where the fighting took place, to evacuate fearing that they could be affected by explosions.
Ad-Dimeiri also said, “We will not support the strengthening of [the Hamas-Fatah] split through our job and we will not give anyone the chance to threaten people’s lives. We wished things would not go in such a horrible way but they [the Hamas fighters] insisted on keeping up the shootings against the security forces which became their more than the Israeli forces.”
He also accused Hamas of collecting information and taking pictures of security forces’ positions in order to target them. After interrogation, he said, some armed men appeared to be linked to explosives caches that had recently been found in mosques in Qalqiliya.
Ad-Dimeri also denied presence of any political prisoners in the PA’s jails, though he said there are around 100-250 people detained for “security reasons.”
