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Hamas won't give up arms
17/08/2005 21:16 - (SA)
Beirut - The radical Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas won't give up its arms after Israel's withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, the group's political chief said on Wednesday.
"The resistance will continue across all of Palestinian territory. The road ahead is still long. "We want to complete our freedom and Hamas will not give up its arms," Khaled Meshaal told a news conference in Beirut.
Meshaal, who in 1997 survived an assassination attempt by Israeli Mossad agents, said Israelis should "pull out of (all) Palestinian territory if they don't want their blood to spill".
Calling the possession of weapons a "legitimate right" for Hamas, the Damascus-based Meshaal said: "The enemy's retreat from Gaza does not mark the end of occupation."
The Palestinian militant leader added that the international community must realise that the "shortest route to stability in the region is the end of the Israeli occupation".
Israel is in the process of evacuating some 8 000 settlers from all its 21 settlements in the Gaza Strip and four in the West Bank.
However, many Palestinians are sceptical that Israel plans to exploit the pull-out to strengthen its hold over Jerusalem and the West Bank, home to the vast majority of its 245 000 settlers.
- AFP
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