http://www.smh.com.au/world/hamas-cracks-down-on-rogue-militants-to-avoid-war-with-israel-20110121-19zyr.html
Hamas cracks down on rogue militants to avoid war with Israel Jason Koutsoukis January 22, 2011 GAZA CITY: Hamas says it has begun an exhaustive crackdown on maverick resistance fighters in the Gaza Strip to prevent an Israeli military offensive even more deadly than the 2009 war. Intelligence indicating that Israel was ready to strike Gaza was passed to Hamas officials last week via Egypt, they said, after more than 30 rocket and mortar attacks against Israel since January 1. ''The message was very simple,'' Hamas's national security spokesman, Ihab Ghusain, told the Herald this week. ''If the rockets continue, then Israel will launch a war against Gaza.'' No Israeli citizens have been killed or injured by the 2011 onslaught but Israel's policy of counterattacking for every rocket and mortar fired into its territory has resulted in the deaths of at least 20 Palestinians and the wounding of dozens more. On receiving the Egyptian warnings, Hamas organised an urgent meeting last Wednesday of all Palestinian resistance factions operating in Gaza to ram home the message that unless all the rocket and mortar attacks were halted, war was inevitable. At the meeting the Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar warned militants that they were ''playing with fire'' if they continued to antagonise Israel. Yet as recently as Tuesday, Palestinian militants fired four mortars at Israeli targets. In response, Israel Defence Forces troops shelled what a spokesman said was a group of Palestinians ''in the process of setting up explosives'' near the northern Gaza border. One man was killed and two were injured. Two men were wounded by Israeli gunfire on Monday and on Wednesday. The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, an advocacy group in Gaza, disputed the Israeli claim that the men shelled on Tuesday were laying explosives, saying they were construction workers collecting scrap. ''Everyone must acknowledge that the Gaza Strip is under occupation, and it is under daily attack, and so people have the right to maintain an armed resistance,'' Mr Ghusain said. ''But we have established a system of checkpoints, search and seizure operations, and other measures to try and prevent the rocket attacks because we have no interest in another war with Israel.'' Despite the threatening start to 2011, rocket and mortar attacks on Israel fell to 235 last year, compared with 853 attacks in 2009 and 3716 attacks in 2008. ''Israel knows that last year was one of the quietest of the decade, and that Hamas has been very serious about maintaining the present state of calm, yet what we hear is that they want war,'' Mr Ghusain said. Akram Attalah, a columnist in Gaza for the Fatah-aligned newspaper Al-Ayyam, believes talk of another war is rife within the tiny Palestinian enclave that is home to 1.5 million people. ''I think we will see a war before the end of the summer,'' Attalah said. The Israel Defence Forces would not comment on military plans but vowed to continue to respond aggressively to any attacks on Israel. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------------------ Post message: [email protected] Subscribe : [email protected] Unsubscribe : [email protected] List owner : [email protected] Homepage : http://proletar.8m.com/Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/proletar/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/proletar/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: [email protected] [email protected] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [email protected] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
