Dr. Sami Abu Zuhri, the Hamas spokesman in the Gaza Strip, on Tuesday refuted news reports on contacts between his Movement and the Israeli occupation as sheer lies that target tarnishing Hamas's image.Abu Zuhri in a press release said that the report was intentionally released to cover up for ongoing political contacts aimed at breeding a new Olso agreement. He was thus referring to PA chief Mahmnoud Abbas's contacts with Israeli premier Ehud Olmert.
He drew the attention to the fact that the "false claim" contradicted the field situation where an IOF preparation for a large-scale invasion of the Strip is underway targeting the Hamas Movement. "Our only dialogue with occupation is resistance", he asserted, adding that Hamas did not object to contacts made by PA government officials to facilitate the crossings issue and to spare those crossings any attacks "to serve our people".
Abu Zuhri pointed out that the IOA was the one refusing any calm and escalating military attacks on the Palestinians. Retorting to the Israeli deputy war minister's condition that called for a period of 15 days to test Hamas's seriousness in having calm, Abu Zuhri said that it was occupation and not Hamas that should stop aggression then speak about a truce.