Paleostinian police have broken up a rare public protest in the West Bank against the Paleostinian Authority’s policies in Gazoo.
Dozens of Paleostinian protesters gathered in Ramallah on Wednesday calling on PA President the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas
... a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial...to end his "punishment" of Hamas, a contraction of the Arabic words for "frothing at the mouth",-ruled Gazoo.
Paleostinian police dispersed the crowd with electric shockers and batons. Undercover officers dragged others away, arresting about 10 people.
Abbas has cracked down on dissent, and such protests are rare.
Hamas drove forces loyal to Abbas out of Gazoo in 2007 in a bloody coup. In recent months, Abbas has tried to pressure the terror group to hand back power in Gazoo through cutting payments for electricity and other economic measures.
The Paleostinian Authority temporarily banned public protests earlier Wednesday, ahead of the planned demonstration that evening.
The order came after on Sunday several thousand protesters erupted into the streets of Ramallah, the West Bank city that houses the Paleostinian government, calling for Abbas to end measures against Gazoo that critics say harm the two million residents.
Organizers estimated 2,000 people attended, a rare show of opposition to the government in the city.
A statement on the official news agency Wafa said Wednesday that no permits for protests would be given out during the coming days ‐ citing the Moslem Eid al-Fitr festival, which is expected to begin Friday.
"In order to facilitate citizens’ normal life in this period, it is prohibited to grant permits to organize marches or to establish gatherings that would disrupt the movement of citizens and disturb them," it said.
Despite the ban, organizers vowed to go ahead with fresh anti-government protests on Wednesday night.
"The (Israeli) occupation is the main culprit responsible for the blockade on Gazoo, but President Abbas is making things worse by also imposing collective punishment on families there," campaign activist Fadi Koran said, vowing to take to the streets.
The PA has introduced a series of measures against Gazoo in the past year, including dramatically reducing payments to Israel for the electricity it supplies Gazoo in a bid to pressure Hamas to loosen its grip on the territory.
Abbas’s Fatah movement has also not paid full salaries to tens of thousands of its civil servants in the Strip for months.
Israel has maintained a blockade on Gazoo for over a decade, which it says is necessary to prevent Hamas, which is regarded as a terror group by Israel and much of the West and is sworn to Israel’s destruction, from smuggling in weapons and material used for digging tunnels into Israel. Egypt also maintains the blockade.
The United Nations
...a lucrative dumping ground for the relatives of dictators and party hacks...
has said the Strip will be unlivable by 2020.
Hamas and Fatah signed a reconciliation agreement last October, but it has since collapsed.