Hamas: The assassination of Qassam leaders in Qalqiliya is a premeditated crime

Ramallah, (PIC)-- The Hamas Movement in the West Bank stated Sunday that the assassination of Al-Qassam leader Mohamed Al-Samman and his assistant Mohamed Yassin in Qalqiliya at the hands of PA security elements is a planned crime, noting that the martyrs were already on the PA-Israeli security apparatuses’ hit lists. In a statement received by the PIC, Hamas said that this crime was the outcome of day-and-night hard work, affirming that it was following up the escalating political arrests and raids carried out lately by the PA security apparatuses in Qalqiliya in an attempt to reach a Palestinian resistance cell spearheaded by Samman. The statement noted that the PA security apparatuses, during the process of searching for Samman cell, kidnapped more than 40 Palestinians affiliated with Hamas in the past four days. For his part, Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said, in a statement received by the PIC, that the assassination of two Qassam leaders in Qalqiliya after less than 48 hours of the murder of Qassam leader Abdelmajid Dodeen illustrated the main job of the PA security apparatuses and the level of their security coordination with the Israeli occupation against the Palestinian resistance factions. Spokesman Barhoum stressed that this reprehensible crime comes in the context of the pledges made already by former PA chief Mahmoud Abbas to implement everything that was stipulated by the roadmap plan especially his promises to the US and Israel to eliminate the Palestinian resistance and Hamas. The spokesman held Abbas and Fatah faction fully responsible for this crime and the consequences of their security coordination with the Israeli occupation against the Palestinian resistance. In the same context, deputy head of the Hamas parliamentary bloc Yahya Mousa strongly denounced what happened in Qalqiliya, highlighting that the PA in Ramallah became empty of its national content and part of the Zionist security institution. Mousa underlined in a statement to the PIC that what happened reflected that the PA adopts a serious approach not different from the violations committed by Ariel Sharon mobs in the West Bank in the past. The lawmaker described Abbas and his entourage as traitors and called for revolting against them, adding that there could be no common ground or talks with them as long as they are persistent in conspiring against the Palestinian resistance. “We are at a historic juncture and this requires the unity of all nationalists against this treacherous group,” the lawmaker emphasized, warning that Abbas’s persistence in implementing the roadmap plan turned his security apparatuses into one of the Israeli military units engaged in murder, kidnapping and assassination. For his part, spokesman for the Palestinian interior ministry deplored the crime of Qalaqiliya, noting that what happened was the product of the roadmap plan that considers the resistance an unforgivable crime. In a statement received by the PIC, Hamas mourned Sunday the death of Samman and Yassin and considered their assassination a red line overstepped by Abbas and his security apparatuses. The statement underscored that Hamas, in light of this crime, would reassess its policies and positions towards those parties who proved their treason against the Palestinian people.