Hamas: We'll take control over West Bank in autumn
Senior Islamist group leader says 'our supporters will soon be praying in
the Muqata in Ramallah, after Abbas' regime falls like a leaf'
Ali Waked YNET Published: 10.30.07, 00:55 / Israel News
www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3465575,00.html

Senior Hamas leader Nizar Rayyan said Monday that the Islamist group would
soon take control over the West Bank.

"In the autumn Hamas supporters will be praying in the Muqata compound in
Ramallah (site of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' offices)," he said
during a rally in Gaza.

"We are now praying at the Presidential compound in Gaza, just as we said we
would. Abbas' regime will fall like a leaf come autumn."

Since Hamas' violent takeover of Gaza last June, the Palestinian Authority's
security services have been seeking out Hamas operatives on a daily basis,
especially those suspected of belonging to the group's armed wing, the Izz
ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades.

Hamas has repeatedly threatened to retaliate to any attacks against its men
in the West Bank.

Rayyan continued to say that "in the fall the man who kills his own people
will be exposed, and we will annihilate him just as we have annihilated
others like him."

Yaser Abed Rabo, a member of Palestine Liberation Organization's (PLO)
Executive Committee, said in response that "Rayyan belongs in an asylum.
These people are mentally and nationalistically backward.

"Rayyad, Mahmoud al-Zahar and that whole Hamas gang really, they don't deem
Jerusalem, Gaza and the West Bank to be that important at all. All they want
is to spread the Islamic mindset amongst Muslims worldwide. This group has
nothing in its arsenal but threats; this gang does not know the meaning of
dialog, all they can do is curse," the PA official told the Ma'an news
agency.