RAMALLAH: A senior Fatah official on Sunday accused Hamas of seeking to foil his movement’s general convention which is going to take place in the West Bank in August.

Hussein Al-Sheikh, Fatah Secretary General, said that Hamas is preventing Fatah members from traveling to the West Bank to attend the convention in Bethlehem.

“Hamas conducts political extortion and tries to obstruct the (Fatah) convention,” Al-Sheikh said in a press statement.

Hamas said the prevention is to protest the ongoing arrest of its members in the West Bank by President Mahmoud Abbas forces.

Israel has agreed to allow some 500 members of Fatah from the Gaza Strip to pass through to the West Bank, but Hamas said it will not allow anyone to leave before its security services examine the history of each nominee. Hamas says that the PA holds up to 700 of its supporters in the West Bank for just being affiliated with the Islamic movement. “By announcing so, Hamas emphasizes its policies that are based on ruling out the others and fighting the political pluralism,” Al-Sheikh said.

“For two years, Hamas has held the Gaza Strip hostage and stepped up its measures against Fatah there, trying to widen the split between the West Bank and Gaza,” Al-Sheikh added.

Fatah hasn’t held its general conference for nearly 20 years and Abbas had been struggling until he succeeded in setting Aug. 4 as the date for the conference which representatives of every Fatah-affiliated sector would attend.

But the timing of the conference comes at the highest of the Hamas-Fatah split.

On Saturday, a Hamas leader strongman in Gaza Strip Mahmoud Al-Zahhar on rejected the visit of Abbas to the Gaza Strip.

“This matter (Abbas’ visit to Gaza) is completely rejected for security considerations,” Al-Zahhar told the British Broadcasting Corporation in an interview.

Al-Zahar wondered “how could Abu Mazen (Abbas) return (to Gaza) under such security situation? How could he be received? And what effect this visit would have on people who have their sons, their homes destroyed or their salaries stopped?”

Asked about Hamas conditions to let Gaza Fatah party members travel to the West Bank city of Bethlehem to attend the party’s sixth General Assembly, Al-Zahar said “Fatah has to pay the invoice for its conference success.”