 Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri gave harsh criticism of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Wednsday in Gaza, saying that the latter's condemnation of the use of rockets attacks on Israel did a disservice to the Palestinian resistance movement. Zuhri stated that the Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip was a direct result of such attacks, and said that occupation could only be ended by resistance rather than through negotiations. He used the fact that Israeli forces were not withdrawing within the framework of bilateral negotiations as proof. In a speech before the Palestinian parliament in Tuesday, Palestinian president Abbas stated, "I don't want to talk about whether firing these rockets is important or not, but I wanted to talk about the destructive consequences. No one of us could forget last week's tragedy when a father and his son were killed by a rocket." In response to the comment, Zuhri was quoted as saying that the Palestinian President "didn't refer at all to the fact that the armed resistance is a major reason for ending the occupation", according to Xinhua. He also added that this was the first time in Palestinian history that armed resistance had successfully ended Israeli occupation, and referenced Hizbullah's success in ousting Israeli forces from southern Lebanon in 2000. |