Christians Under Attack

The PA is financially backed by the U.S. and European allies who supply most
of the PA's funds.

Egyptian government sources tell WND they were supplied with information
showing the PA has been supporting Jayish al Islam, a Palestinian al-Qaida ally
accused of the Coptic Christian church bombing in which 23 were killed.

Hamas, a rival to the PA, gave the Egyptians detailed bank account
information proving members of Jayish al Islam received monthly salaries from the PA in the West Bank.

A top Hamas official in Gaza claimed to WND he is "certain" the PA finances
the group in a bid to destabilize Hamas rule in Gaza.

This is not the first time the PA has been
implicated in funding Jayish al Islam and other al-Qaida allies.

WND reported in
2009 the American-funded PA provided financial support and, in at least one
case, an official salary to al-Qaida allies in the Gaza Strip, according to
information obtained by WND.

WND has learned that Abdel-Latif Moussa, leader of a Palestinian Islamist
splinter group allied with al-Qaida, has been on the official PA payroll for at
least one year.

In 2009, there were deadly fire clashes between Hamas and Moussa's group
after Moussa declared the Gaza Strip an "emirate," or under strict Islamic rule,
in a sermon.

Moussa's group, Jund Ansar Allah, or Warriors of God, branded Hamas as
un-Islamic and issued revolutionary statements against Hamas. Jund Ansar Allah
previously has been accused of multiple deadly attacks against Christians in
Gaza.

According to a PA official, Moussa, a trained doctor, had been on salary with
the PA as a physician.

According to multiple sources in Gaza, however, Moussa has not practiced
medicine for the past 10 years.

Last September, WND quoted
informed security officials stating Fatah was providing money to
al-Qaida-inspired Islamist groups in Gaza to build them up at the expense of
Hamas.

The security officials said there was no official decision within Fatah to
bolster the Islamist radicals, but that top Fatah officials were acting
independently.

A senior source in Hamas' Interior Ministry told WND last September that
Hamas arrested a number of Fatah members in Gaza suspected of serving as links
between the Islamist radicals and Fatah officials in the West Bank city of
Ramallah.

Ahmed Yousef, Hamas' chief political adviser in Gaza, told WND he has many
questions about the financing of Jund Ansar
Allah.

"They have a lot of weapons and money, making everyone here wonder how they
got such weapons and explosive material," he said, speaking by cell phone from Gaza.

Aside from blaming the PA, Yousef also claimed Israel may have provided Jund
Ansar Allah with weapons

 

Jayish al Islam is based in both the Gaza Strip and neighboring Egyptian
Sinai Peninsula. It frequently challenges Hamas, which seized control of Gaza
from the PA in 2007.

U.S. policy considers the PA to be moderate. America arms, trains and funds
PA militias and provides hundreds of millions of dollars per year in financial
support to the Palestinian group. President Obama, furthermore, backs the
creation of a PA-led Palestinian state