Israeli troops in jeeps swooped down on the West Bank town of Nablus early Monday, shutting down a girls' school, a medical center and two other facilities of a Hamas-affiliated charity, witnesses said. Computers, documents, cash and furniture were seized, the witnesses said. The Israeli military had no immediate comment on the Palestinian reports. But the raid appears to have been part of an intensified crackdown on Hamas in the West Bank by Israel and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. The violently Islamist Hamas wrested control of the Gaza Strip from Abbas' forces a year ago, and neither Israel nor Abbas want that takeover reprised in the West Bank. Three weeks ago, Israel and Palestinian militants in Hamas-ruled Gaza agreed to a truce. Although the ceasefire is limited to Gaza, confrontations between Israel and Hamas in the West Bank have already provoked Gaza militants to violate the agreement. “We consider the Israeli decision to shut down charities that take care of families of martyrs, orphans and poor people as a moral crime,” Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said in Gaza. “It's an inhumane act against poor sectors in the Palestinian society.” He made no mention of the truce. In recent months, Israeli troops and Abbas' security forces have gone after West Bank charities, moneychangers, women's cooperatives, media outlets and schools with suspected ties to the militants. Around 1 A.M. Monday, dozens of military jeeps, two bulldozers and two trucks entered Nablus and headed for the facilities of the Solidarity charity, delivering an order to shut the facility for three years, witnesses said. The chairman of the charity is Nablus Mayor Adli Yaish of Hamas. He has been in an Israeli jail since the military rounded up Hamas politicians after the June 2006 capture of an Israeli soldier by Hamas-affiliated militants in Gaza. The troops shut down Solidarity's headquarters, as well as an elementary school for 160 girls and a sports club. “The Israelis have confiscated all computers, documents, televisions and even mobile phones, from the school,” said principal Fidda Draikh. “Now we need to look for an alternative place to educate these girls. We cannot leave them without a school.” The medical center that was shuttered bears the same name as the charity but is run by a different charitable organization that was controlled by Hamas until its top administration was replaced last year by Abbas' government, said its director, Dr. Hafez Al
