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Hamas Halts Gaza Attacks, Israel Strikes Anew
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Zahar announced a halt to attacks on Israel but Islamic Jihad vowed to avenge its assassinated leader. (Reuters).
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GAZA
CITY, September 26, 2005 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – A
few hours after Hamas announced a halt to attacks on Israel from the
Gaza Strip, Israeli helicopters fired rockets at targets in Gaza City
and the southern Gaza town of Khan Yunis.
Palestinian
security officials could not immediately say what the targets had been
in Gaza City and whether there had been any victims, reported Agence
France-Presse (AFP).
In
Khan Yunis a building belonging to the Palestinian Authority was hit
by three rockets, the officials said without giving further details.
The
new air strikes came shortly after senior Hamas leader Mahmoud Al-Zahar
told a press conference that his group had decided to halt attacks
against Israel and end military parades.
"Under
our commitment to the national agreement, made in Cairo, to a cooling
down period until the end of 2005, the movement announces it has
stopped its operations from the Gaza Strip against the Zionist
occupation," Al-Zahar said.
The
decision was taken out of concern for the safety of the Palestinian
people, he stressed.
"Hamas
is committed to protect the Palestinian people from the Zionist entity
and to continue in the climate of celebrations" marking the
Israeli withdrawal from Gaza Strip, added Al-Zahar.
Palestinian
resistance factions have been observing a de facto truce since
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was elected in January, an
agreement that was cemented at talks brokered by Egypt last March.
The
latest escalation began when Israel assassinated three Islamic Jihad
fighters on Friday, prompting the resistance movement to fire three
rockets into the Israeli town of Sderot.
Shortly
afterwards, Israeli warplanes bombarded a Hamas rally in the Jabalya
refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip, killing 19 people and
injuring dozens.
Adding
insult to injury, Israel assassinated two Hamas members in a deadly
air strike in Al-Zaitoun district to the south of the Strip, prompting
retaliation threats from Hamas.
Revenge
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"There is no talk of a truce, there is only room for talk of war," Al-Hindi said.
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Meanwhile,
the Islamic Jihad movement vowed to avenge the Israeli assassination
of Mohammad Al-Shaikh Khalil, the group’s military commander in the
Gaza Strip, in an air strike Sunday.
"There
is no talk of a truce, there is only room for talk of war," Haaretz
quoted Jihad leader Mohammad Al-Hindi as saying.
"(Israeli
Prime Minister Ariel) Sharon ended the truce when he started this
wide-scale war against the West Bank and the Gaza Strip," he
stressed.
Khalil
and one of his associates were killed when two rockets slammed into
their car along Gaza coastal road.
Sharon
has given his army a carte blanche to attack Palestinian resistance
groups.
"There
are no restrictions on the use of any measures in order to strike at
the terrorists, their equipment and where they find shelter,"
Sharon told his cabinet Sunday.
A
unilateral truce declared by Palestinian resistance factions on June
29, 2003, collapsed after Israeli forces assassinated Ismail Abu
Shanab, a Hamas political leader.
Palestinian
factions said that by assassinating Abu Shanab Israel killed stone
dead the three-month ceasefire.
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