RAMALLAH, January 31 Call it humour with a fundamentalist twist. Jokes poking fun at Hamas and looking ahead to life under the Islamic militant group have been making the rounds via cellphone text messages Palestinians have been sending each other since it crushed the Fatah faction in the January 25 election.

“Hamas stopped all suicide bomb operations ahead of the election, because they needed every vote they could get,” read one popular joke. Hamas carried out nearly 60 suicide bombings in Israel since the start of a Palestinian uprising in 2000. But the group has largely abided by a ceasefire Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas declared with Israel a year ago. And while Hamas officials have pledged publicly not to impose Islamic law in West Bank or the Gaza Strip, that hasn’t stopped some Palestinians from taking an irreverent shot at the movement’s bedrock religious attitudes.

“A fine for going through a red light is two prayers,” said a resident of Ramallah, reading a joke that popped up on his cellphone.

Maurice Backlet, a psychology professor at Bir Zeit University in the West Bank, said the humour was an expression of real concern among many Palestinians about the future despite their support to Hamas in the poll.