Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said Friday that Fatah leaders and security officers responsible for the fall of Gaza Strip to Hamas would be punished, in line with findings by an internal investigation. A Palestinian committee of inquiry into Hamas' bloody takeover of the Gaza Strip last month found that about 60 officials of Abbas' Fatah movement and members of the Fatah-allied security forces should be held accountable, Abbas aides said.
The committee's report was not made public and no names of officials being held responsible were given.
According to the AP, Abbas aides promised an overhaul of the security services, based on findings in the report that random recruitment and lack of motivation weakened performance.
Since the fall of Gaza Strip last month, about 40 members of the security services in Gaza Strip have resigned, been fired or sent into retirement.
In a news conference Friday, Abbas aide Nabil Amr said the report found many flaws in the security services in Gaza. "There was no field leadership. ... There were only individual initiatives," he said of the performance of the Fatah forces in Gaza.
"Procedures will be taken to prevent this from happening in the West Bank and in the future," Amr said.
Abbas said Friday that the committee's recommendations would be implemented. "Whoever had shortcomings will get his punishment, and whoever did his duty will be rewarded, so that we can turn a new page in our institutions," he said.
Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri, responding to the report, said Fatah and its security forces are "severely corrupt."
