Hamas yesterday rejected calls from Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas for the movement to give up resisance and hold dialogue with the ruling Fatah party. "We think that the past experience of our people with the Israeli occupation confirms that resistance is the main language that this occupation understands," Sami Abu Zuhri, a Hamas spokesman, said in Gaza City. "Peace agreements will only bring further losses and push back our cause," he added, pointing out that Abbas' Fatah party also maintains its own armed wing, the loosely affiliated Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades.Abbas' call was aired in an interview on US television shortly before an Israeli drone fired a rocket at Islamic Jihad fighters preparing to fire off rocket launchers. Two Palestinian sisters were wounded by the Israeli missile. "This (call) is very strange. We were very surprised about his comments, at a time of continuing aggression against our people and while Fatah is still committed to resistance and they have their armed wing," said Abu Zuhri.
"The climate right now is ready for political negotiations," said Abbas, speaking through an interpreter on ABC television's "This Week" program. "Hamas should reach that conclusion that now the way is the political way and not any other way," the Palestinian leader said. Some Fatah officials have accused Hamas of partly engineering the recent spike in violence in Gaza as part of a dispute with Fatah over local elections earlier this month and ahead of parliamentary elections scheduled for July.