Amad.ps is reporting that Palestinian intelligence services have ordered PalTel to block access to Amad from Palestinian territory. Like the InLightPress case, it is unclear if this includes Gaza.

On its website, Amad says that users in Palestinian territory can access the website, however, they can only do so through a proxy.

According to Amad, a number of officials have spoken out against the actions of Abbas. Talat Safadi, a leader of the Palestine’ People’s Party, said that what as occurring was “unacceptable behavior.” An official from the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, said that the Palestinian Authority must review its recent decisions and lift the bans. A Fatah official in Gaza called on Mahmoud Abbas to allow access to the sites.

InLightPress is now reporting that those living in Palestinian territory cannot access the website as Mahmoud Abbas has ordered the Ministry of Information to block access to the site. It is unclear if this includes Gaza.

The decision, which resulted from Abbas’ desire to suppress the stories regarding his draconian rule, was reportedly made on Wednesday evening.

Abu Libdeh, who has a Ph.D. from Cornell University, was referred to court by the Palestinian Anti-Corruption Commission. One of Abu Libdeh’s aides, Sami Ramlawi, the former Finance Ministry director-general, was also indicted on charges of corruption.

Abu Libdeh is accused of “misuse of credit, fraud and manipulation in the financial market.” Abu Libdeh used to head the Palestinian Capital Market Authority, which oversees the local stock market.

In November, when the first reports regarding the charges emerged, Abu Libdeh said that he was being targeted for political reasons:

“I tried to be the loyal soldier in the battle to defend our cause and spent time behind bars and under house arrest. But some don’t want to see success and can’t live with it. I’m fed up with ongoing attempts to defame me and my record.”

It is important to note that Abu Libdeh is not the first Palestinian official to face corruption charges recently. In August, the Minister of Agriculture Ismail Daiq stepped down from his duties after facing charges of corruption. Daiq is yet to stand trial.

In mid-December, Jonathan Schanzer covered the corruption probes in his piece The End of Fayyadism:

In the Palestinian Authority, corruption probes aren’t launched unless the president wants them launched. In this case, Abbas has engineered these latest scandals to discredit Fayyad and cast doubt on the prime minister’s ability to deliver on his celebrated mandate of countering corruption. After all, the corruption goes to the highest levels of the Palestinian Authority, and the officials in question were appointed by Fayyad himself.

While the merits of these cases are yet to be determined, they are not designed to rid Palestine of corruption. Rather, by ousting ministers and hobbling Fayyad, Abbas creates an opportunity to replace them with figures more to his liking.

Abbas makes the major decisions impacting Palestinians out of his sprawling Muqata compound in the West Bank city of Ramallah. Fayyad, meanwhile, works with a skeleton crew in a modest office nearby. According to officials who work with them, the two figureheads of the Palestinians are barely on speaking terms. Fayyad has become a glorified accountant, leveraging his strong relationship with international donors to collect checks that ensure his government can continue to pay salaries — while Abbas pursues a provocative foreign policy that endangers those sources of funding.

After a couple of days of being down, InLightPress returned and released a statement, which called the attack on its website “treacherous barbarism.”  In addition, they said that they believed that “the attack came from the Palestinian Authority with the approval of President Abbas.” Moreover, InLightPress said that they had learned from sources in Ramallah that Mahmoud Abbas set up a “crisis cell” headed by Sabri Saydam, former Palestinian minister for technology, to carry out the attack.

On February 3, InLightPress was hacked again. At the time I wrote that “The order to bring down this site was ordered by Mahmoud Abbas himself.” I stand by that.

On February 6, InLightPress returned, and on Tuesday evening they released a new statement regarding the hacking of their website.

In the new statement, InLightPress said that “we now know who they are, and why they did it, and they know that we will not stop.” In addition, they say that they published things against “you,” little by little. The “you” is almost certainly Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian Authority.

InLightPress writes that they knew that Abbas’ people would come after them, but did not expect it to happen so soon. InLightPress plans to launch a new section on its website called Violations, which will focus on the “villains of darkness,” who “who kill and oppress their own people.”

Currently, it appears that InLightPress is under yet another hacking attack, just hours after the release of this new statement.

In short, it is difficult to see how this declaration is different than the other unity declarations. Though, one difference is that compared to the May 2011 agreement, Abbas and Meshal actually signed the Doha Declaration.

While the agreement has garnered praise from Egypt, Islamic Jihad and others, a number of Hamas officials in Gaza have slammed the agreement. Hamas via the Palestinian Legislative Council has  issued a document detailing the illegality of the move to make Abbas both President and Prime Minister.

The primary conclusion of the document is that

“The combination of the position of President of Palestinian National Authority and the prime minister involves a violation of the constitution, and is considered a violation of the constitutional amendments of 2003.” 

While Hamas’ arguments seem sound, it appears that the Palestinian Authority has already failed to abide by the agreement.

According to the Doha Declaration, the Palestinian Authority was supposed to release 64 Hamas political prisoners. On Tuesday, Hamas slammed the Palestinian Authority over this, as they noted discrepancies between those released and the list that they obtained.

According to Hamas, 7 of the prisoners are still imprisoned. In addition, 2 of the prisoners were never imprisoned, while 7 prisoners had been released over 5 months ago. One of the prisoners was released when his sentence ended some time ago. Three of those released were only arrested for a single day. 35 of the released had been released on bail, thus, their cases are still subject to trial.

In addition to Hamas officials slamming the agreement, Fatah officials have criticized it. A senior Fatah official told The Jerusalem Post, similar to Hamas’ legal document, that:

“This is a scandal not only because it violates the [Palestinian] Basic Law, but also because it turns Abbas into an autocrat with absolute powers. This is unacceptable at a time when the Arab world is witnessing popular uprisings against dictators.”

A number of political analysts have made a similar point. In addition, Palestinians have taken to social media sites to mock the situation, as one Palestinian wrote:

“Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas congratulates the new prime minister, Mahmoud Abbas, and invites him to meet with the chairman of the Fatah Central Committee, Mahmoud Abbas, under the auspices of the head of the PLO Executive Committee, Mahmoud Abbas, at the home of the Overall Commander of the Palestinian Armed Forces, Mahmoud Abbas.”

For those wondering whether Hamas has renounced violence with this new agreement, Hamas’ Izzat al-Rishq said yesterday that the agreement does not negate “armed resistance.”

“The Palestinian people maintain their right to all forms of resistance, and we are committed to armed resistance and the activation of popular resistance to confront the enemy, and we will not abandon any form of resistance at all.”

Within a few days the site was back online, and in their press release they said that “The attack came from the Palestinian Authority with the approval of President Abbas.”

Since its return the site has continued to run articles critical of Abbas, one of which I reported upon.

It now appears that InLightPress has been hacked again. And once again they say the attack is coming from “a political entity.”

As I said the first time the site was hacked, this “political entity” is the Palestinian Authority. The order to bring down this site was ordered by Mahmoud Abbas himself.

Update (Feb 6): InLightPress is back up.

Al-Quds Al-Arabi is now reporting that three Fatah officials (Naima Sheikh Ali, Majid Abu Shamala, and Alaa Yaghi), originally from Gaza, now based in the West Bank, have slammed the recent activity of the Palestinian Authority security forces.

The three Fatah officials slammed the security forces for “waging a campaign of harassment and prosecution against Fatah members who sought refuge in the West Bank after Hamas’ takeover of the Gaza Strip.” According to the Fatah officials, Palestinian security forces recently kidnapped one of their associates. During the kidnapping, the security forces reportedly used two cars with Israeli plates.

Fatah is not alone in its condemnation of the Palestinian Authority security forces. On Wednesday, Hamas slammed them for arresting five Hamas members near Nablus. One of those arrested was a teacher, who Hamas says was only arrested because of his political affiliation.

Now, Dahlan is at it again, though, this time he is commenting on the expulsion of his friend Samir Mashharawi from Fatah.

On Monday, Dahlan made two statements on his Facebook page. In the first statement Dahlan said:

The decision to dismiss the brother Samir Mashharawi is only what is expected of people who have lost their loyalty and affiliation to the movement.

He continued to say that the expulsion was simply an attempt by Abbas “to cover up” his domestic and political failures.

In a second statement Dahlan said:

If the war being fought by Abu Mazen against me was against the occupation, Palestine would have been liberated twice and all the prisoners would  have been released and the refugees would have returned.

On Tuesday, Dahlan issued a third statement:

Letters have been sent today to the members of the Legislative Council, calling on them to stand up to their responsibilities toward what is happening regarding the flagrant violations of the law and the Palestinian judiciary by the President.

InLightPress is now reporting that Mahmoud Abbas recently ordered the arrest of Joseph Shayeb, a journalist for Al-Ghad.

According to InLightPress, Shayeb was arrested after publishing an article about the expulsion of Samir Mashharawi from Fatah, something I also covered. Shayeb reportedly wrote in his report that the expulsion was ordered by Abbas and was “in violation of Fatah’s regulatory framework.”

Fortunately, Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad intervened on Tuesday evening and ordered the release of Shayeb.

In related news, PalTimes reports that Rami Samara, a journalist, was arrested by Palestinian Authority security forces on Tuesday evening after posting comments that were critical of the PLO on his Facebook page.

Update: The Associated Press has picked up on this story.

Rami Samara, an editor at the official Palestinian news agency Wafa, said plainclothes security agents took him from his office to Abbas’ headquarters on Tuesday and held him for four hours. “They showed me about 100 pages of comments I made on Facebook, mostly criticizing the Palestinian Authority and the PLO,” he said.

He said he was told he would be released if he signed a confession that he organized an anti-government demonstration on behalf of a small PLO faction critical of Abbas. Samara said he refused, but he was eventually released.

“Before this detention, I thought that we, the Palestinian people, enjoy wide freedom, but after what I saw, I think I’m being followed by the intelligence in every step of my life,” he said.

….In another case, journalist Yousef Shayeb, who writes for the Jordanian newspaper al-Ghad, said he was held for eight hours at a Palestinian intelligence office Tuesday. He said he was questioned about stories in which he alleged a Palestinian diplomatic mission abroad was riddled by corruption. Shayeb said interrogators demanded that he reveal his sources, which he said he refused to do.

After a few days of being offline the site has returned and has unleashed a scathing press release that confirms my claim.

InLightPress says that the attack on its website was “treacherous barbarism.” In addition, it states the the attack on the site’s servers was done by professionals. Further, InLightPress says that the attack was a “blatant attack on freedom of opinion and expression.”

In addition, they say that they believe that “the attack came from the Palestinian Authority with the approval of President Abbas.” InLightPress says that they have learned from sources in Ramallah that Mahmoud Abbas set up a “crisis cell” headed by Sabri Saydam, former Palestinian minister for technology, to carry out the attack.

According to InLightPress, the Palestinian Authority has denied that it was involved in the attack. However, InLightPress says that it plans to collect evidence and launch a formal suit.