Security forces loyal to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas discovered explosives laboratories and weapon manufacturing and storing places for Hamas in West Bank city of Hebron over the past days, a security chief said Monday.
Major General Aqel al-Sa'di, director of general intelligence service in the West Bank, said members of the Islamic movement, who were arrested during the raids on the labs, admitted "they receive orders from Hamas leadership to shake security and cause disorder in the West Bank."
The intelligence service found chemical substances, equipment, electrical appliances and large amount of ammunition said to be used in producing explosives.
The West Bank is ruled by the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), dominated by Abbas' Fatah movement. Hamas is based and controlling the Gaza Strip since June 2007 after it drove out pro- Abbas forces.
The two movements have been cracking down against their dissidents: Hamas people in the West Bank and Fatah supporters in the Gaza Strip.
Meanwhile, Hamas rejected the intelligence services' claims about the weapons.
"The pro-Abbas forces fabricated these lies to disturb the atmosphere ahead of the Fatah-Hamas dialogue," said Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoom, referring to Egyptian efforts to broker a reconciliation between the two feuding movements.