Hamas-linked website warns Palestinians not to work with Israel'
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[March 11, 2024]
By Nidal al-Mughrabi
GAZA (Reuters) - A Hamas-linked website on Monday warned Palestinian
individuals or groups against co-operating with Israel to provide
security for aid convoys amid the five-month-old war in the Gaza Strip.
Those who did would be treated as collaborators and be handled with an
iron fist, the Hamas Al-Majd security website said, quoting a security
official in Palestinian militant forces.
The warning came in response to Israeli media reports that Israel was
considering arming some Palestinian individuals or clans in Gaza to
provide security protection for aid convoys into the besieged enclave as
part of wider planning for humanitarian supplies after the fighting
ends.
The Israeli Prime Minister's office has declined to comment on the
report, which came a week after dozens of Palestinians were killed in an
incident in which crowds surrounded a convoy of aid trucks entering
northern Gaza and troops opened fire.
"The occupation's attempt to communicate with the leaders and clans of
some families to operate within the Gaza Strip is considered direct
collaboration with the occupation and is a betrayal of the nation that
we will not tolerate," the website said, quoting the official.
"The occupation's (Israel) efforts to establish bodies to manage Gaza
are a 'failed conspiracy' that will not materialize."
With civil order increasingly strained in Hamas-run Gaza and police
refusing to provide security to convoys because of the risk of being
targeted by Israeli forces, the issue of secure distribution of
desperately needed food and other supplies has become a major problem.
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Displaced Palestinians try to get internet service on their phones
through the Egyptian networks to communicate with their relatives,
amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Rafah in the
southern Gaza Strip, March 4, 2024. REUTERS/Mohammed Salem/File
Photo
Gaza has several large traditional family clans, affiliated with
political factions including Hamas and Fatah, the rival group that
dominates the Palestinian Authority in the occupied West Bank. Some
of those clans are believed to be well-armed and there has been no
indication that they would consider working with Israel.
Responding to plans by the European Union and the United States to
create a sea corridor to send aid ships to the enclave, senior Hamas
official Basem Naim said it was a "positive" step but the world
should have rather acted to end the war.
"Ensuring all the needs of the population in the Gaza Strip are met
is not a favour from anyone; it is a guaranteed right under
international humanitarian law even during times of war," Naim told
Reuters.
"If the US administration is serious about solving the humanitarian
crisis, the easiest and shortest path is to stop using veto power to
allow a ceasefire to be reached, and to compel Israel to open all
land crossings and allow entry of all required aid," Naim said.
(Reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi, Editing by Angus MacSwan)
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