Hamas: PA Suppression of West Bank Protests is a National Betrayal and Alignment with the Enemy’s War on Gaza

As our people in the Gaza Strip endure the most horrific forms of genocide, starvation, and destruction, the Palestinian Authority’s security forces in the West Bank continue their campaign of repression and arrests against those who take to the streets in solidarity with Gaza and in condemnation of the Zionist regime’s crimes. This, according to Hamas, constitutes a blatant act of national betrayal and disgraceful alignment with the enemy in its war against the Palestinian people.

Abdul Rahman Shadid, a senior official in the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), declared that the PA’s actions in the West Bank are a dagger in the back of the resistance, a stab in the side of Palestinian steadfastness, and an exposed expression of security collaboration with the enemy—an enemy that is openly slaughtering the Palestinian people in front of the entire world.

In a statement issued Friday, Shadid said that the popular protest marches reflect the bare minimum expression of the people’s conscience and the heartbeat of the nation. These demonstrations, he stressed, are a religious, national, and moral duty—and must never be met with clubs and suppression, but rather protected, supported, and embraced.

He emphasized that the crackdown on demonstrators and the persecution of activists only serves the enemy—an enemy that does not distinguish between a fighter and a coordinator, and will spare no one, not even those who cooperate with it.

Shadid called on the Palestinian Authority and its security apparatuses to immediately reverse this destructive course, to remove their grip from the throats of our people, and to join the ranks of the resistance, not the trenches of security coordination and political complicity.

He concluded by urging the masses of the West Bank, the diaspora, and all free Palestinians to escalate public outrage, expand the zones of confrontation, and ignite the fields of resistance—in support of Gaza, to break the siege, and to reject any hand that attempts to strangle the people’s will or distort their compass.