Hamas' deposed Prime Minister Ismail Haneya Monday announced his administration has discovered spy networks in the Gaza Strip that served Israel through the Ramallah-based Palestinian National Authority (PNA).
"In recent arrests, the security services were able to dismantle several security cells that channeled dangerous but false information to Ramallah and then to the Israeli occupation," Haneya told reporters.
Haneya added that most of the networks' members were PNA employees who still receive salaries from Salam Fayyad's West Bank government.
He added that the recent arrests Hamas has conducted in Gaza were meant to deprive Israel from "a bank of targets so the occupation will not be able to defeat our people's glory and hope. "
Over the past days, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah party had accused Hamas of arresting supporters and activists in Gaza.
Haneya vowed that his administration will continue the crackdown in Gaza, stressing that it targets the collaborators rather than Fatah men.
His remarks are the latest in a series of accusations of arbitrary arrests Hamas and Fatah have been trading for two years.
In June 2007, Hamas routed pro-Abbas forces and seized control of Gaza, driving out Fatah and the PNA to the West Bank.
Hamas says the PNA has been hunting down the Islamic movement's followers in the West Bank.
On Sunday, a spokesman for the PNA security forces said cells for Hamas were found and dismantled in the West Bank, adding that the cells were planning to rebuild Hamas's security system in the Israeli-occupied territory.
(Xinhua News Agency July 6, 2009)
