Human rights abuses seen up in Gaza and W.Bank

By Wafa Amr

RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) - Human rights conditions have worsened in both the Gaza Strip and the West Bank since Hamas ousted Fatah in Gaza last year, a Palestinian rights group said on Tuesday.

The Palestinian Independent Commission for Citizens' Rights (PICCR) said in its annual report, rights abuses had increased in both territories after Islamist Hamas seized control of the Gaza Strip following clashes with President Mahmoud Abbas's secular Fatah faction in June.

"Our report finds that unfortunately because of what happened in Gaza, and the violent confrontation between Fatah and Hamas, grave human rights violations have resulted," PICCR head Mamdouh al-Aker said.

"There is a regression in the status of human rights in Gaza and the West Bank," he told Reuters.

Abbas sacked a Hamas-led government following Hamas's seizure of Gaza on June 14 and appointed a Western-backed administration in the West Bank -- a move that eased trade sanctions. Israel has since tightened its blockade on Gaza.

The PICCR, which has offices in both territories, said Fatah and Hamas have both used the law "as a tool to justify practices and policies each side uses to challenge the other".

Human rights groups have reported abuses by both Hamas and Fatah forces, such as the deaths of prisoners in detention and cases of torture.

PICCR official Muin Barghouthi told a news conference in the West Bank city of Ramallah that while 412 Palestinians were killed by Israeli troops in 2007, 585 were killed in factional Palestinian fighting, the overwhelming majority in Gaza.

"In June last year, 190 people, including civilians and children, were killed in Gaza and no files were opened to investigate the crimes," Barghouthi said.

FUTURE POLICE STATE?

Abdel-Razak al-Yahya, Palestinian interior minister in Abbas' government, told Reuters human rights conditions had improved in the West Bank in the past year.

"Human rights abuses are not equal in the West Bank and Gaza. There have been individual cases of violations here but we have given very strict and written instructions to the security forces not to use force," Yahya said.

Aker said representatives of his group met Abbas on Monday and asked him to ban torture in the Palestinian areas. He said Abbas and Hamas had made progress on restoring public order.

"But we told him we have noticed a tendency towards militarization in both areas, as if a state of lawlessness had shifted to a sort of a security state, a police state. We don't want our future state to be a police state," Aker said.

Ehab al-Ghsain, spokesman for the Hamas-run Interior Ministry in Gaza, said some isolated human rights abuses took place after the takeover. But he said human rights conditions overall in the enclave had improved since June.