A meeting of the Islamic militant movement Hamas scheduled for Friday in the Gaza Strip was banned by Palestinian police for security reasons, a Hamas official was quoted as saying by AFP.
"The Palestinian police informed us they were revoking permission for the holding of this rally because they fear acts of reprisal by Israel after the incidents in Nablus yesterday," said the official, who asked not to be named.
A Jewish settler and a Palestinian were killed Thursday in a gunbattle near Nablus in the West Bank.
"The Palestinian police fear there could be Israeli raids on the meeting and we have accepted the decision not to put the lives of the participants at risk," the official told AFP.
Hamas spiritual leader Sheikh Ahmad Yassin had been scheduled to take part in the meeting after Friday prayers in the Jabaliya refugee camp in the north of the self-ruled Gaza City, said the agency.
Meanwhile, the movement denied Friday press reports saying that Yassin announced that some members of the group had managed to sneak into Israel to carry out military attacks there, according to Al-Jazira satellite channel.
AFP reported Thursday that Yassin told Germany's Financial Times Deutschland newspaper that “Hamas threatened Israel with terrorist attacks on its soil.”
The group also said in a fax sent to Al Jazira that the statements attributed to Yassin “contradict the established policy of the movement, which separates totally between its two wings, the military and the political.”
The statement denied also that Yassin warned that Palestinian authorities would face an uprising if their police jailed any of the Hamas activists recently released – (Several Sources)
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