In a belated move to erase the last vestiges of his short-lived partnership with the Islamic militant group Hamas, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, of Fatah, fired dozens of Hamas-affiliated senior civil servants, an official in his office said Saturday.Those affected were hired last spring under a power-sharing agreement between the rival factions.
At a news conference in Gaza on Saturday morning, Ahmed Bahar, the acting speaker of the Palestinian parliament from Hamas, called the firings "absolutely illegal."
Fatah joined a Hamas-led unity government in March, but Abbas dismissed it after Hamas seized control of the Gaza Strip in June, routing the Fatah forces there in a brief but brutal factional war. Abbas has since appointed a caretaker government in the West Bank, but Hamas, which came to power in elections in 2006, does not recognize its authority and governs in Gaza.
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