The Independent Commission for Human Rights (ICHR), which, was established in 1993 upon a Presidential Decree issued by late President Yasser Arafat, said in a press statement that the PA security forces “launched a wide arrest campaign against Hamas members and supporters” following the shooting attack that left four Jewish occupiers dead near the West Bank city of Hebron last Tuesday.

Hamas’s military wing Ezzedeen Al-Qassam Brigades claimed responsibility for the attack. The movement said that that the PA forces arrested around 600 of its members since the attack.

ICHR said that “the arrests were collective and did not take into consideration the rules and laws applied in the PA territories, making it look as a collective punishment.”

The organization expressed its concern of the repeated arrest of Palestinian civilians by the PA security forces. ICHR added that it received dozens of complaints about the detention of Palestinians without being brought before the specialized judicial authorities.

It called on the PA to provide all needed legal procedures during the raiding and the searching of houses, and the detention in accordance with the Basic Law and the Code of Criminal Procedure of 2001.  

ICHR urged the PA to stop the prosecution of Palestinian civilians before military courts and to release all detainees describing their detention “a crime without legal basis.”

Hamas and Fatah have been cracking down against each other since the Islamic movement routed pro-President Mahmoud Abbas forces and seized control of the Gaza Strip in June 2007.