PA Security: Hamas responsible for smuggling medicine in to the West Bank

Thursday March 20, 2008 17:08 by Ghassan Bannoura - IMEMC News

Palestinian Preventative Security Forces in the West Bank apprehended on Wednesday at night 11 million NIS worth of medicine that was hidden in a wedding hall in the central West Bank city of Ramallah.

PA Security officer – Photo by IMEMC's Ghassan Bannoura - 2008

The security force said that the medicine was illegally smuggled into the Palestinian city , and that samples were sent to the lab to be checked in order to decide if the medicine is for human consumption, and to check if this medicine has any relation to the amount of medicine that was found in Nablus city in the northern part of the West Bank last week.

Palestinian medical sources said that an amount of expired heart medicine was also found in Ramallah at the same time when the PA security forces found the hidden medicine.

Maher Dweikat, director of the Palestinian Preventative Security Forces in Ramallah, blamed Hamas movement for smuggling the medicine into the Palestinian areas to keep the state of lawlessness in the West Bank.

He eadded that some suspects were arrested by the Palestinian Authority and that the investigation is still going on. Dweikat said that the investigation will be published to the public and it will have a lot of surprises.

Dr. Adnan Al Masri, from the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Ramallah city, said that, in the past, the ministry did not have the needed tools to react to those issues but now and with the new arrangements with the Palestinian security forces, the ministry can enforce safety and consumption rules.

In June 2007 the Hamas movement ended a several months of infighting between the movement and the Palestinian President Abbas's Fateh party which left Abbas and his care taker government in control of the West Bank and Hamas in control of Gaza. Abbas fired the Hamas headed government shortly after the take over and outlawed the movement's Executive Force.

ramallah | internal unrest | news report ghassanb at imemc dot org