Hamas mulls stopping attacks
This is a first and could be very big news IMO
msnbc.com
GAZA, Gaza Strip, July 22 — The militant Palestinian group Hamas said on Monday that it would consider halting suicide attacks on Israelis if Israel pulled out of West Bank cities and took other measures. The statement came as Israel lifted some restrictions on Palestinians, and two days after Israel proposed withdrawing troops from some Palestinian areas in the West Bank to test the ability of Palestinian security to prevent attacks on civilians.
“BASICALLY WHAT I would say to the occupation army is to leave ... the Palestinian cities in all the West Bank that were occupied,” Hamas founder and spiritual leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin told reporters in the Gaza Strip.
“And stop your aggression, demolishing homes. Release prisoners and stop assassinations. Once the occupation and all those measures against our people stop, we are ready to totally study stopping martyrdom operations, in a positive way.”
Hamas gunmen and suicide bombers have targeted Israelis both inside Israel and in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, territories Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war.
Hamas, which opposes Israel’s right to exist, has been carrying out suicide bombings since 1993 interim peace accords which it rejected.
Yassin did not clarify whether any reconsidered position on attacks would apply both to Israel and to Israeli soldiers and Jewish settlers in the West Bank and Gaza, or be limited geographically.
After a month-long Israeli offensive in the West Bank ended in May, the wheelchair-bound Yassin told Reuters that Hamas would launch attacks on Israel as long as its army continued raids into Palestinian-ruled areas and killed civilians.
ISRAEL EASES SOME RESTRICTIVE MEASURES
Meanwhile, after talks on the weekend, Israel on Monday released $20 million in Palestinian tax revenues it seized after a Palestinian uprising against occupation flared in 2000 and said more could be transferred if the funds were not misused.
Prominent Palestinian moderate Sari Nusseibeh on Monday reopened his East Jerusalem office closed two weeks ago by Israeli police in a move criticized as counter-productive by the United States.
Israel withdrew its police order closing the office after Nusseibeh agreed not to conduct any activities on behalf of the Palestinian Authority from his office in the administration building of al-Quds University.
A hot controversy over Israel’s plan to deport the families of suspected militants to the Gaza Strip cooled somewhat on Monday.
Sixteen West Bank Palestinians facing deportation by Israel withdrew their legal action against the move after receiving an appeal guarantee, Israeli security sources said on Sunday.
Israel did not issue a formal explanation for the decision, which could cool the controversy about its plans to deport relatives of militants, its most recent countermeasure against a 21-month-old Palestinian uprising for independence in the occupied territories.
In a separate glimmer of goodwill, Israel agreed to transfer tax revenue withheld from the Palestinians on condition its distribution was monitored, Israeli political sources said.
That decision came hours after Foreign Minister Shimon Peres told Palestinian leaders that Palestinian violence was delaying steps to relieve civilian suffering in the West Bank, which has been largely reoccupied by the Israeli army.
TEST FOR PALESTINIAN SECURITY?
On Saturday, Israel proposed withdrawing troops from some Palestinian areas in the West Bank to test the ability of Palestinian security to prevent attacks on civilians, a top Israeli official said Sunday.
The proposal was made at talks with Palestinians Saturday night as part of an effort to find ways of easing the tough restrictions placed on Palestinians in the West Bank, Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres said on Sunday.
“We have no interest in staying in those places where the Palestinians can prove that they can take control,” Peres told Israel Radio.
Israel’s army has occupied seven of the eight main Palestinian cities and towns in the West Bank for the past month, keeping hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in their houses under a rolling curfew.
Peres did not specify from where troops might be withdrawn, but Army Radio said the forces could withdraw from Hebron and Bethlehem as early as Tuesday if those areas remain quiet.
The Palestinians say their security forces can’t re-establish control until after the Israeli forces pull out. Many Palestinian security force buildings have been damaged or destroyed in Israeli attacks.
“The key to breaking the circle of violence begins with the Israeli withdrawal from all the Palestinian cities,” said Palestinian Information Minister Yasser Abed Rabbo.
The two sides plan to hold additional talks in coming days.
7,000 WORK PERMITS AT STAKE
Before fighting began, an estimated 125,000 Palestinians crossed daily into Israel for work. Israel has since blocked most Palestinians from entering. Closures in the West Bank and curfews in individual towns have also prevented Palestinians from working in their own towns.
Peres told the Palestinians that 7,000 work permits will be issued in the coming days as long as there were no attacks. It was not immediately clear if Sunday’s attack on the train would change the Israeli decision.
Israel had considered issuing the work permits earlier this month but froze the plan when two attacks last week killed 11 Israelis.
The Israelis also told the Palestinians that the permitted fishing zone off the coast of the Gaza Strip would be extended, and a crossing point between Gaza and Israel would remain open for longer periods to allow more merchandise to pass through, Army Radio said.
BOMB BLASTS TRAIN
A bomb attack on a train injured the engineer as it was traveling south of Tel Aviv, in Yavneh, on Sunday morning.
The explosion went off on the tracks and damaged the engine of the passenger train, police said. The engineer was injured in the abdomen by the force of the blast, but the train was not derailed, police said.
The remote-control bomb weighed about 11 pounds, police said. There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but police said they believed Palestinian militants were responsible. |
