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The Hamas-run interior ministry in the Gaza Strip has ordered Palestinians in the territory not to take part in elections called by Mahmoud Abbas, the West Bank-based president. 

Abbas issued a decree announcing that presidential and parliamentary polls would take place on January 24, but an interior ministry statement on Wednesday said the elections had been called "by figures who do not have the right to declare it".

Ehab Al-Ghsain, a Hamas interior ministry spokesman, said that Gazan officials had been instructed not to co-operate with Abbas's efforts to stage the vote. 

"Any preparations, any committees, any collecting of names will be regarded as an illegal action that we will pursue," he said.

Ghsain also said that the current Central Election Commission (CEC), which has five offices in Gaza, was no longer entitled to carry out preparations for an election, since Palestinian factions including Hamas and Fatah had agreed during unity talks that a new body should be formed.

However, Salih Rafat, a senior official in the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), said on Wednesday that his group still hoped to persuade Hamas to participate. ... >>>