Last update - 23:28 22/09/2001
Hamas said ready to temporarily suspend suicide attacks
By Reuters
Members of the militant Hamas group and other Palestinian officials said on Saturday that Hamas was willing to suspend suicide attacks inside Israel "in the coming period" unless it was provoked by Israel.
"The Hamas movement and its military wing don't live in a vacuum; they take decisions based on the interests of the Palestinian people. Is it in the interest of the people to carry out martyrdom attacks now?" a senior Hamas official said to Reuters. "Maybe not. So those operations could be frozen. Hamas is willing to take the decision to suspend martyrdom attacks in the coming period unless Israel continues to initiate attacks against Palestinian civilians and pursues its assassination policy," the official added.
Hamas officials said the group's readiness to suspend bombings inside Israel had been debated internally after the aircraft attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington on September 11. But none of the officials was willing to be quoted by name.
In Gaza, leading Hamas official Ismail Abu Shanab said: "This issue (of attacks inside Israel) is not to be tackled in the media because it offers Israel a free victory."
Hamas, which opposes peace talks with Israel, has carried out a wave of suicide attacks inside Israel Jewish state, killing scores of Israelis. Palestinian officials said Israel's use of excessive force and its assassinations of Palestinian military and political leaders in the past year of violence had narrowed differences between Arafat's mainstream Fatah faction and Hamas.
Fatah, however, still opposes suicide attacks inside Israel and confines its struggle to the occupied territories which make up more than 80 percent of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
In a meeting last week, representatives of all Palestinian secular and Islamic factions resolved to confront what they said was an Israeli campaign to portray the Palestinians' struggle against occupation as terrorism.
Arafat has announced his readiness to join a global anti-terrorism coalition. On Tuesday he declared a ceasefire to try to put an end to 12 months of bloodshed that has claimed the lives of more than 700 people.
Palestinian faction members said Arafat met on Thursday with representatives of all nationalist factions and Hamas and asked them to abide by the truce. The militant Islamic Jihad group, which rejects the ceasefire, did not attend the forum.
Members of Fatah and other Palestinian officials said Hamas and Palestine Liberation Organization factions have promised Arafat that they will refrain from shooting from areas under Palestinian control, and suspend attacks inside Israel. Though Arafat has asked for a total cessation of hostilities, the factions' resolution leaves out Israeli- controlled areas in the occupied West Bank. "All factions have said they understand the difficult situation the Palestinian people and their leadership are facing following the U.S. attacks and are willing to abide by the ceasefire in areas under Palestinian control," a senior Fatah official told Reuters.
Leading Hamas official Sheikh Hassan Yousef, who attended the factions' meeting with Arafat, said Hamas was reacting to new political realities. "Resistance against occupation is a means and not an objective. Hamas and its military wing make decisions on resistance based on whether it is in their people's interest after studying international and regional realities," Yousef said. |
