GAZA CITY: Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas launched a bitter attack yesterday on Hamas movement which controls Gaza as divided nation marked the fourth death anniversary of historic leader Yasser Arafat.

Abbas accused Hamas of sabotaging efforts to mend the rift in Palestinian ranks and of using force to prevent any commemorations for Arafat in the coastal territory.

Meanwhile, Hamas police prevented several groups of Fatah supporters from holding events to commemorate the anniversary.

In Gaza city, Hamas police yesterday broke into Al-Quds University and assaulted students organizing a rally to mark the event.

Also in Khan Younis city in the southern Gaza Strip, Hamas security men broke into Abassan school and prevented students from celebrating the anniversary.

In his speech delivered besides Arafat’s graveside at his political headquarters in the West Bank town of Ramallah, Abbas blamed Hamas for the abandonment of planned reconciliation talks due to have been held in Cairo on Sunday, accusing it of “not wanting dialogue.” He charged that Hamas had invented “false pretexts” for not showing up at the scheduled talks with the other Palestinian factions in the Egyptian capital.

“They missed this opportunity and I am talking of the Hamas leadership here.” Abbas again insisted that his security services were not holding Hamas activists as “political prisoners” in the West Bank as Hamas leaders have charged. He noted that his government was continuing to pay the salaries of some 77,000 civil servants in Gaza despite the Hamas “putsch.”

“As for them, they smuggle in money arms and drugs through tunnels (from neighboring Egypt) and do business.”

Unlike in the West Bank, where thousands of Palestinians turned out to hear Abbas give his address which was also carried live by Palestinian television, no events were planned in Gaza.

Last year, a massive memorial rally in Gaza was marred by violence when Hamas police opened fire on the crowd, killing eight people and wounding 130.

Nayef Harbiyat, 83, who had traveled to the Ramallah memorial ceremony from Dhahiriya at the other end of the West Bank, bemoaned the loss of the historic Palestinian leader.

— With input from agencies