Hamas, which has been ruling the Gaza Strip since mid-June, on Sunday called on Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to stop crackdown by his security forces on Hamas activists in the Abbas-held West Bank.

In a press statement, Hamas said pro-Abbas forces launched "a general war, including systematic attacks," against Hamas activists in the West Bank.

The statement also accused militants from Abbas' Fatah movement of taking part in 472 kidnappings and 306 attacks against Hamas-affiliated institutions and charities.

The Palestinian security services launched a detention campaign against Hamas members and supporters in the West Bank in mid-June right after Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip and seized pro-Fatah and the Palestinian Authority (PA) facilities in the Strip. Among the detainees in West Bank was Ahmed Dolla, a senior Hamas leader who once held a key post at the interior ministry of the Hamas-led government, which was dismissed by Abbas on June 14 following days of bloody Hamas-Fatah fighting.

Dolla started a hunger strike on Sunday, sparking calls by Hamas to get him freed. The Islamic movement blamed Abbas on Dolla's fate.

At the same time, however, Fatah accused Hamas of still doing the same against Fatah members and leaders in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.

In another development, Hamas has started to recruit policewomen to work at the detention centers that the Islamic movement seized following its takeover of the Gaza Strip, a spokesman said Sunday.

Ihab al-Ghussein, spokesman for the Interior Ministry of the unity government sacked by President Mahmoud Abbas, said the new drive was part "of the arrangements that the legitimate government (unity government led by Hamas) undertakes to keep control of security and order in the Gaza Strip."

Tens of women were hired and their work now is limited to the prisons, according to al-Ghussein.

He also emphasized these procedures were provisional until the Palestinian factions, mainly Hamas and its rival Fatah, resume dialogue which stopped after the defeat of Abbas' Fatah during Gaza fighting.

(Xinhua News Agency August 6, 2007)