GAZA, Jan. 7 (Xinhua) -- Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah Party and its rival Islamic movement Hamas recriminated each other on Saturday over Hamas' bar against a Fatah delegation from entering the Gaza Strip.
Fatah Party said in an email to reporters that the security forces of Hamas, which rules the coastal enclave, prevented a high- ranking Fatah delegation from entering Gaza on Friday, adding that Hamas behaved like gangs and don't want the reconciliation deal to work.
On Friday, four senior Fatah leaders from the West Bank city of Ramallah bound for the enclave were stopped by Hamas security forces stationed near Erez border crossing in northern Gaza.
Hamas ministry of interior said in a press release that one of the Fatah leaders cursed Allah in front of the security officers.
"There is no objection to the arrival of Fatah movement's delegation to the Gaza Strip, but the head of the delegation Sakher Bseiso must prepare himself to stand before the court in Gaza for violating the law and cursing the name of Allah," said the press release.
Bseiso said in an earlier statement on Saturday that he didn't curse the name of Allah, adding that "the Hamas security officers at the crossing humiliated the Fatah senior officials by keeping them waiting for a long time."
Fatah and Hamas have been on rocky terms since the latter seized control of the Gaza Strip and routed Fatah forces out from the enclave.
The two rival movements signed an Egyptian-brokered reconciliation agreement in Cairo last May, and Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal and President Abbas agreed to set up separate committees to clear way for the implementation of the agreement.
The latest sparring between the two rivals came only a few weeks after a landmark meeting held by Abbas and Meshaal over the implementation of the reconciliation deal in Cairo in late November.
Azzam al-Ahmad, a member of Fatah Party Central Committee told Voice of Palestine Radio that preventing the Fatah delegation from entering the Gaza Strip symbolizes the mentality of "a group of people, who only think about their narrow interests and believe the reconciliation would be a threat."
"We shouldn't surrender to the blackmail of the kidnappers of Gaza Strip and to their attempts to keep the split going on," al- Ahmad said, adding that "what had been agreed upon in Cairo has to be accurately implemented to end the division."
Meanwhile, Yasser Abed Rabbo, Secretary General of Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), said in a statement emailed to reporters that banning Fatah delegation from arriving in Gaza "is unjustified and condemned," adding that "there is no law on earth that prevents a citizen from arriving home."
However, senior Hamas leader Salah al-Bardaweel said in a statement that Fatah "enlarged and exaggerated" what had happened with an agenda to escape the implementing the reconciliation deal.
"They behaved impolitely with the officers at the crossing, and Fatah leadership should be held responsible for what happened. Hamas is committed to reconciliation and calls on Fatah authorities to release the political prisoners in its jails in the West Bank and stop secret talks with Israel," said al-Bardaweel.
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