Hamas buying land in Jerusalem: Israel security chief

The Islamist Hamas movement is buying land in Jerusalem as Palestinian groups jockey for influence in the disputed Holy City, the head of Israel's Shin Bet security service said.

"Hamas is working through Dawas (Islamic missionary and charity groups) to buy land within the municipal borders of the city," Yuval Diskin told the parliamentary Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee, according to officials who attended the closed door meeting.

Jerusalem, holy to Christianity, Judaism and Islam, is one of the thorniest issues in the Middle East peace process and has been a frequent flashpoint between Israel and the Palestinians.

The Palestinians want to make east Jerusalem the capital of their promised state. Israel, which captured it in the 1967 Middle East war and annexed it in a move not recognised by the international community, lays claim to the entire city as its "eternal, indivisible capital."

But Diskin said various Palestinian groups were also competing with each other for influence in Jerusalem, home to the Al-Aqsa mosque, Islam's third holiest site.

"The main forces operating in Jerusalem are Hamas, Fatah and the Islamic Movement," he said, referring to Fatah, the secular party of Western-backed Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas, and an Arab-Israeli Islamist group.

"They are competing for influence and presence in the field," he said.

Fatah and Hamas have remained deeply divided since the Islamists seized control of Gaza in June 2007 during a week of bloody street clashes, confining Abbas's authority to the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

Israel has worked in recent years to prevent Palestinian political groups from operating in the city, shutting down buildings like Orient House, the headquarters of the Palestine Liberation Organisation in east Jerusalem.

Most of the recent friction in the city, including clashes, has been linked to the construction of Jewish settlements in east Jerusalem.

Diskin said Palestinian groups did not appear interested in expanding the conflict at the moment.

"All the groups acting in east Jerusalem, including the (Arab) residents, are not interested at this stage in a full scale conflict in Jerusalem," he said.