Olmert in ultimatum to Hamas after rocket attacks
BEN LYNFIELD IN JERUSALEM
ISRAEL'S prime minister issued a warning to Hamas yesterday that it would escalate its military activity unless the Palestinian militant group stopped firing rockets into the country from Gaza.
Ehud Olmert issued the threat hours after an Israeli air-strike killed three people its army claimed were Hamas fighters travelling in a car in Gaza City.
"If the diplomatic and political steps we have taken do not bring about calm, we will be forced to intensify our response," Mr Olmert said.
Hours after the warning, a Qasam rocket struck the centre of the Israeli border town of Sderot, but it caused no injuries.
The Israeli army said ten rockets had been fired from Gaza yesterday and that four of them had landed in southern Israel.
Meanwhile, the latest ceasefire between Hamas and the rival Fatah movement appeared to be holding, prompting residents to venture out of their homes to stock up on supplies. Children were able to go back to school.
However, there was little optimism that the truce, which followed internecine fighting that killed at least 49 people, could bring more than a temporary respite.
The two sides continued to engage in a war of words.
Yasser Abed Rabbo, an adviser to Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president and leader of Fatah, accused Hamas of sending rockets into Israel not in order to resist occupation, as Hamas says, but to camouflage their "coup" against Mr Abbas's authority and the Fatah-aligned security forces in Gaza.
"They want to use this so-called resistance against Israel as a cover for what they are practising inside the Gaza Strip," Mr Abed Rabbo said.
"They want to unite the population around them as much as they can and show they are victims of both Israel and Fatah."
Sami Abu Zuhri, a Hamas spokesman responded angrily, branding Mr Abed-Rabbo "an American-Zionist mouthpiece who is one of the leading causes of civil strife".
He went on: "He expresses only the policy of the occupation and its goals."
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Last updated: 20-May-07 00:03 BST |
