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Hamas seals deal on Israel
AS ISRAELI tanks massed on Gazas borders last night, Hamas executed a dramatic shift in policy to reach an agreement that implicitly recognises Israel. The militant Palestinian groups surprise move could see the Hamas-led Government anathema to Israel and the West replaced within weeks by a national unity coalition. Details of the agreement remained unclear, but Palestinians hoped that the prospect of the secular Fatah party and other factions joining the Government might end international sanctions, and make it possible for Mahmoud Abbas, the moderate President, to restart negotiations with Israel. But those hopes depend on the immediate military crisis being resolved. Ehud Olmert, the Israeli Prime Minister, promised a comprehensive and protracted military operation unless Gilad Shalit, the 19-year-old soldier captured on Sunday, were freed. He later spoke of a limited operation in southern Gaza, targeting terrorist infrastructure. Last night Israeli missiles struck three bridges along Gazas main north-south highway, in what the military said was an effort to impair the Palestinians ability to move the captive soldier. As convoys of Israeli tanks took up position just north of Gaza and armoured bulldozers constructed sand berms along the border, Palestinians hastily built defences against attack. In northern Gaza, from where Palestinian militants have regularly fired rockets into Israeli towns, fighters put up barricades in Jabalya refugee camp, while Islamic Jihad fighters further south posed with rocket-propelled grenades, mortars, AK47s, bomb belts made of ball bearings and explosives packed into disinfectant bottles. The men conceded that they had nothing to match Israels F16 fighters and Merkava tanks. But, one said: We have exploding bodies. Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State, pleaded for restraint. Egypt moved 2,500 troops to Gazas southern border to prevent a mass exodus of Palestinians, and urged Hamas to release Corporal Shalit. The Popular Resistance Committees, a militant group with close ties to Hamas, said that the soldier was being held in a safe place that the Zionists cannot reach. The PCC was one of the three groups who seized Corporal Shalit in a daring tunnel raid on Kerem Shalom military base, and are now demanding the release of Palestinian women and child prisoners. As Hamass military wing took joint responsibility for the attack, its political wing was ending its power struggle with Mr Abbas by apparently accepting a national unity plan that the President had threatened to put to a referendum. Hamas has long advocated the destruction of Israel, but the plan calls for a Palestinian state on the West Bank and Gaza territories captured by Israel in 1967 implicitly recognising Israels existence in the rest of historic Palestine. However, the original document, drawn up by Palestinian prisoners from all factions, does not mention a two-state solution or Israels right to exist. Its already ambiguous language may also have been watered down in recent talks. Walid Awad, a spokesman for Mr Abbas, said that Mr Abbas would insist on any new government accepting the three international demands that have been made of Hamas: recognising Israel, renouncing violence and abiding by previous agreements. This is the basic point on which the President and Fatah have concentrated that its programme has to be acceptable to the international community, Mr Awad said. Mushir al-Masri, a rising star in Hamas, again made clear that while his group acknowledged the reality of Israels existence it did not recognise the Jewish states legitimacy. He also said that it had agreed only to focus future attacks in the West Bank and Gaza, not to confine them to the occupied territories. Israel, meanwhile, dismissed the agreement as an irrelevance as long as an Israeli soldier remained captive. Mark Regev, an Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman, said: Its a tragedy that the responsible Palestinian leadership was not giving its full attention to the release of our soldier. We really are at the edge of a cliff. If he is not released we will be forced to take actionto bring about his release. Posted by: lotp 2006-06-27 |
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