Hamas: Truce With Israel at End
Pastor Dale Morgan
Hamas: Truce With Israel at End
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By Scott Wilson
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, April 24, 2007; 1:48 PM
JERUSALEM, April 24 -- The military wing of Hamas fired a barrage of
rockets and mortar shells Tuesday into southern Israel and reiterated
that it would no longer abide by a five-month-old truce with Israeli
forces in the Gaza Strip.
Two of the six crude rockets fired from Gaza landed inside Israel,
causing no injuries or damage.
Eight mortar shells also landed in open areas during a two-hour attack.
Israeli attack helicopters responded quickly, firing on the launch sites.
Israeli military officials said the rocket strikes, the first claimed by
Hamas since it agreed to a cease-fire with Israeli forces in Gaza last
November, was designed to mask a Hamas attempt to enter Israel on the
ground.
Although Israeli military officials would not elaborate on the intent of
the operation, spokesmen from Hamas' military wing indicated that it was
an attempt to kidnap an Israeli soldier.
"The cease-fire has been over for a long time, and Israel is responsible
for that," said a masked Hamas gunman in Gaza, who used the nom de
guerre Abu Obaida. "We are ready to kidnap more and more, and kill more
and more of your soldiers."
Last June, Hamas gunmen spearheaded a cross-border raid from Gaza on an
Israeli army post that resulted in the capture of Cpl. Gilad Shalit, who
is still being held.
Israeli forces pushed into Gaza soon after in the first major ground
incursion since Israel evacuated its soldiers and settlers from the
strip in the fall of 2005.
Last month, Hamas gunmen in Gaza shot and killed an Israeli utility
worker inside Israel, declaring an end to the truce. But it had not
carried out any attacks since then.
The Tuesday strikes, which were followed by news conferences, appeared
aimed at reviving the military wing's reputation as the leader of what
it calls armed resistance to the Israeli occupation. The movement does
not recognize the Jewish state.
Israeli military and intelligence officials have warned that Hamas has
smuggled tons of explosives and more advanced weapons, including
longer-range anti-tank missiles, into Gaza in preparation for attacks on
Israel.
But until a flurry of rocket fire during the weekend, which followed
Israeli operations in the West Bank that killed nine Palestinians, most
of them from armed groups, the strikes had declined in recent months.
The cease-fire was never extended to the West Bank.
There were no indications that Israel was preparing a major retaliation.
But it has been clear in recent weeks that Israel's patience with the
rocket fire is running out amid rising pressure on the government to
stop it.
Hamas, which heads the governing cabinet of the Palestinian Authority,
has made a distinction between its political party and military wing,
known as the Izzadine al-Qassam Brigades.
But Prime Minster Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas also blamed Israel Tuesday for
the fraying cease-fire, telling reporters in Gaza that "we made great
efforts in preserving the truce."
"It's not a Palestinian problem," Haniyeh said. "It's an Israeli problem."