Fatah, Hamas battle for control of mosques
Fatah is tightly controlling mosques in the West Bank, claiming to shield them from political interference, but its adversaries accuse it of using mosques for its own political purposes.
RAMALLAH, West Bank — The mosques in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip are still an arena of political conflict between the governments of those areas and religious parties of various orientations.
The Palestinian Authority (PA) became aware of the mosques’ political importance after Hamas’ victory in the 2006 legislative elections. Back then, the mosques were used to disseminate political ideas. The authorities sought to terminate that phenomenon after the split in 2007.
In 2009, the Ministry of Endowments and Religious Affairs in the West Bank approved a series of decisions to limit the control of Hamas and religious parties on mosques by directly supervising them, preventing nonemployees from managing cultural or religious programs, preventing speeches or leading prayers and unifying the topics of the Friday sermons.
Mahmoud al-Habbash, the minister of endowments and religious affairs in the Palestinian government in Ramallah, told Al-Monitor that the ministry decided in 2009 to place all mosques under its supervision and end the phenomenon of factional or partisan mosques. The ministry supervises 1,935 mosques, as the ministry’s undersecretary Khamis Abdo told Al-Monitor.
