MIDDLE EAST:The moves are part of a campaign to cut support for the Islamic group, writes Peter Hirschbergin Jerusalem
ISRAELI TROOPS raided city hall in the West Bank city of Nablus yesterday and confiscated several computers.
On Tuesday this week, troops stormed a Nablus shopping mall and posted closure orders on shop windows.
The day before, soldiers visited the Al-Tadamon (Solidarity) charitable association in the city and seized computers and documents.
The same day, Nablus residents said the army shut down a girls' school in the city and a medical centre.
The common thread running through all these institutions, Israeli officials say, is that they are associated with Hamas and the raids this week in Nablus are part of a much broader campaign launched by the Israeli military against the Islamic movement's civilian infrastructure in the West Bank.
Shutting down Hamas-associated schools, clinics, charities and even orphanages, officials say, will deprive the Islamic group of a vital source of money that is channelled via these institutions to fund attacks on Israel.
But the main thrust of the campaign is to undercut Hamas's growing popularity in the West Bank - at the expense of Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas and his Fatah party - and prevent it from seizing control of the area as it did in Gaza a year ago.
As part of this campaign, it emerged earlier this week that defence minister Ehud Barak recently issued orders outlawing 36 NGOs that operate abroad, on grounds that they were fundraising for Hamas.
Defence officials say that in 2007 some $120 million (€76.6 million) were transferred to Hamas-related bodies in the West Bank and Gaza from institutions in the Gulf states, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Europe, Latin America and the US.
In recent months, the army has also raided what it says are Hamas-related associations in the West Bank city of Hebron, including an orphanage and a bakery. Institutions in Qalqilyah and Ramallah have also been targeted.
In Gaza, Israel and Hamas are continuing to observe a truce that went into effect last month, but this does not include the West Bank, where the Israeli army continues to operate.
"Hamas is popular in the West Bank and this is an attempt to block their popularity," says Danny Rubinstein, a veteran observer of Israeli-Palestinian relations and the author of several books on Palestinian society and politics.
But Rubinstein doubts the campaign will succeed.
"The reason why Hamas is popular is because the political programme put forward by Fatah has failed," he says.
"If Israel wants to block Hamas then it should stop settlement construction and there needs to be serious movement toward a two-state solution.
"If that doesn't happen, then the Palestinians are left with one option - one state for one people. And that's Hamas."