The violent political power struggle between Fatah in Judea and Samaria and Hamas in Gaza is destroying civil rights, according to the Palestinian Authority (PA) human rights organisation Al Haq. "We don't have a police state here in Palestine. We have two police states. One in Gaza and one in the West Bank," said Al Haq’s Rabie Latifah in an interview with Inter Press Service. "The abuse of Palestinian civilians by both Fatah and Hamas security forces has become systematic and is no longer the exception to the rule.”
He cited mysterious bomb blasts, assassinations by masked gunmen, detainees denied access to their lawyers, torture and death in detention, the random arrest of critical journalists, and the banning of peaceful demonstrations as a few examples of the human rights violations sweeping the region. In addition to armed men being arrested, he said that politically motivated arrest campaigns even target citizens suspected of sympathizing with the opposition. "We have endured over 40 years of occupation and human rights abuses by the Israelis, and now we are doing it to ourselves," says Raji Sourani, director of the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR).