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Hamas,
Jihad Play Down Israeli Facilities
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Palestinians
"have not made all these sacrifices to obtain the liberation
of one or two prisoners and the right for some workers to be
allowed" into Israel, Rantisi said
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GAZA
CITY, May 30 (Islamonline.net & News Agencies) - Palestinian
resistance movements Hamas and Jihad played down Friday, May 30, the
facilities Israel announced hours after Palestinian Premier Mahmoud
Abbas’s meeting with his Israeli counterpart Ariel Sharon on Thursday,
May 29.
Abelaziz
Rantisi Rantisi, a top Hamas official, dismissed the meeting as "a
denial of the rights of the Palestinian people."
He
told Agence France-Presse (AFP) that Hamas would only stop its martyrs
operations if Israel halts incessant aggressions on the Palestinian
people.
"There
is a price to everything, stopping our martyr operations and attacks
against (Israeli) civilians cannot occur without the enemy paying the
price and stopping its aggression in all its forms," he stressed.
Palestinians
"have not made all these sacrifices to obtain the liberation of one
or two prisoners and the right for some workers to be allowed" to
go back to Israel, he said in reference to some measures announced by
Israel Friday.
"What
our people want is the release of every prisoner, the restoration of our
land and holy places and a halt to the (Israeli) aggression,"
Rantisi asserted.
Meaningless
Mohammed
al-Hindi, a senior official of the Islamic Jihad, also labeled the
meeting "meaningless."
He
charged that the facilities talked about were only to prepare the ground
for U.S. President George Bush’s visit to the region, to give the
impression there is a political partner and a political process.
"Sharon
has no political agenda and therefore Abu Mazen’s attempts to
penetrate the Israeli premier’s wall would fail," said al-Hindi.
He
expected Israel to re-clamp its watertight blockade and aggression
immediately after the departure of Bush just as it happened after the
recent visit of U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell.
Hindi
said dialogue between Palestinian factions and the Palestinian Authority
would be intensified over the coming days, but asserted no date has been
set for a meeting between Abu Mazen and Jihad.
The
Palestinian premier had met earlier with Hamas leaders to discuss the
peace prospects and the possibility of halting anti-Israel operations.
“Concessions”
Sharon’s
office announced Friday a number of measures and facilities to the
Palestinians, hours after the Sharon-Abbas meeting, including the
release of two of the most important Palestinian prisoners in Israeli
jails.
Ahmed
Jbarra Abu Sukkar, the longest-serving Palestinian prisoner who has
spent nearly three decades in Israeli prisons, and Taysir Khaled, a
member of the Palestine Liberation Organization's (PLO) executive, will
both be released shortly, the office said in a statement.
Another
100 Palestinian prisoners being held in administrative detention without
charge or trial will also be released, it added.
Among
the other new facilities were easing restrictions on Palestinian workers
and officials in the Gaza Strip and West Bank, which are both under
strict Israeli military blockades, as well as an increase in the payment
of taxes due to the Palestinian Authority.
Abu
Sukkar, 69, a member of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat's Fatah
movement, was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1976 for allegedly
detonating an explosives-laden refrigerator in downtown occupied
Jerusalem the year before in an attack which killed 14 people.
Abu
Sukkar, who suffers from heart problems and is being held in Ashkelon
prison, south of Tel Aviv, has served 27 years of his sentence.
Originally
from Turmus Aayya, a village near the West Bank town of Ramallah, he
grew up in the United States before joining Palestinian resistance
groups in Lebanon in the 1970s.
Khaled,
arrested six months ago by Israeli troops in Nablus in the northern West
Bank, is considered Israel's most important Palestinian prisoner after
member of parliament Marwan Barghuti, who is currently on trial for
murder.
Sharon
also agreed to a phased handover of security control in Gaza and West
Bank towns to the Palestinians in line with the roadmap's call for
Israel to withdraw to positions it held before Al-Aqsa Intifada, his
office said.
But
he warned that if any concrete threat to Israeli lives emerged from
areas under renewed Palestinian control and the Palestinians failed to
take action, "the army would not hesitate to act to prevent
it".
In
return Sharon demanded Abbas take action to halt the violence, such as
"dismantling terror organizations, confiscating illegal weapons,
and ending incitement," his office said.
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