Hamas armed wing warns Israel
2006-04-09 11:01
Gaza City - The armed wing of the governing Palestinian movement Hamas, under huge international pressure to renounce violence, vowed on Sunday to avenge a weekend of Israeli strikes which has left 15 people dead.
The latest victim was a 29-year-old taxi driver Yasser Abu Jarad who was killed by a tank shell at the entrance to a national security post in the Beit Hanun region of the northern Gaza Strip as he dropped off a member of a unit.
Five other security men were also wounded in the attack which came as part of intensifying efforts by the army to put a halt to the firing of rockets from Gaza into southern Israel.
A series of air strikes on Friday night and Saturday had also left 14 people wounded, making it much the deadliest bout of violence since Hamas's upset victory in a January parliamentary election and subsequent formation of its first government last month.
The radical Islamist movement, regarded as a terrorist organisation by the West and Israel, has carried out the bulk of the suicide attacks against Israel since the Palestinian uprising erupted in September 2000.
Although it has held off any such attacks for more than a year, Hamas has so far resisted international pressure to commit itself to non-violence and recognise Israel's right to exist.
Both the US and European Union announced over the weekend that they were either cutting or suspending direct aid payments to the already cash-strapped Palestinian Authority now that it is led by Hamas in the absence of a change of platform from the party.
However the prospects of a u-turn by Hamas looked particularly dim Sunday after the movement's armed wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, issued a statement vowing to avenge the Israeli attacks.
"These crimes against the Palestinians will not stop us following the path of resistance and jihad," the Brigades said in a statement received by AFP.
"The Zionist enemy will pay a high price and will drink from the same cup from which our people drink day and night."
It was the first time in several months that the Brigades had issued such a statement and comes despite the fact that none of the victims of the weekend's violence were followers of the group.
The statement by the armed wing's also backed its political masters' refusal to buckle to pressure from the West on the financial front.
"We confirm our whole-hearted support for the elected Palestinian government which has been under pressure and has had obstacles placed in its way," it said.
The Hamas prime minister Ismail Haniya also lambasted the decisions by the EU and US on Saturday, saying it amounted to blackmail.
The Israeli government however is delighted by what it sees as a growing international move to isolate Hamas.
Acting prime minister Ehud Olmert, whose Kadima party is poised to head the next government after its own election victory last month, refuses to have any dealings with Hamas.
In the absence of what he regards as a partner in the peace process, Olmert has vowed to fix the final borders of the Jewish state unilaterally before the scheduled end of his term in office in 2010.
The move will involve the uprooting of around 70 000 Israelis living in the occupied West Bank but in turn Olmert wants to keep hold of large blocs which house the vast majority of the quarter of a million Jewish settler population.
As part of efforts to win over US support for his master plan, Olmert gave his first major post-election interview to the Washington Post and Newsweek in which he said that the "time is right" for a unilateral settlement.
"I think there is an opportunity now that never existed before," Olmert noted. "This is due to a combination of public opinion in Israel, my commitment and the understanding and hopefully future support of President George W. Bush."
- SAPA