As rockets from Gaza hit Israeli house, Hamas nixes continuation of lull

As rockets from Gaza hit Israeli house, Hamas nixes continuation of lull By Associated Press November 3, 2005

Rocket fire at Israel from Gaza resumed Wednesday as Hamas said the Islamic militant group would not renew an informal 9-month-old truce, which expires at the end of the year, after Israel killed one of its leading activists in an airstrike in Gaza.

The truce was brokered by Egypt which is expected to invite militant groups, including Hamas, to Cairo in coming weeks to discuss extending the agreement.

After sundown Wednesday, two mortar shells fired from Gaza exploded in Netiv Haasara, just north of the territory, the military said. The rescue service said it was treating five slightly wounded civilians. Channel Two TV said a rocket landed harmlessly in a field outside the Israeli town of Sderot.

In response, Israeli artillery shelled areas in northern Gaza where rockets are fired, the military said. No casualties were reported. Since Israel pulled out of Gaza in September, its military has responded harshly to rocket and mortar attacks.

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On Tuesday, a Hamas activist and a top fugitive from another armed group were killed in an Israeli airstrike in a Gaza refugee camp.

"In the face of this Zionist aggression, no one should dream about the renewal of this truce," said a Hamas spokesman, Mushir al-Masri. Hamas reserves the right to retaliate for the attack, though it won't pull out of the truce right now, he said.

In the West Bank, an Israeli soldier was killed during an overnight roundup of militants near Jenin, the army spokesman said. In the same operation, an Islamic Jihad militant involved in a suicide bombing in Israel last week was arrested, the army said.

Also Wednesday. Israeli troops entered the northern West Bank town of Qabatiyeh and killed Rafat Turkman, an Al Aqsa martyrs' Brigades militant, as he tried to escape, residents said. The military said soldiers fired back at gunmen, hitting three.

More than a week of violence, including Israeli assassinations of militants and the suicide bombing, has hurt hopes for a return to peacemaking following Israel's withdrawal from Gaza in September.

The military said the target of the Tuesday airstrike was Hassan Madhoun, a leader of the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, a violent offshoot of Abbas' Fatah party. The other man killed was Hamas rocket expert Fawzi Abu Kara.

At funerals on Wednesday for the two militants, gunmen fired in the air and one carried a rocket launcher. Calls for revenge blared from loudspeakers, and chants of "Death to Israel, yes to resistance," rose from the crowds.

Militant factions interpret the cease-fire to mean they can respond to individual Israeli attacks while remaining committed to the truce, a position Abbas has rejected.

Since the truce, Hamas and Al Aqsa have refrained from carrying out attacks in Israel, but Islamic Jihad has been responsible for four suicide bombings.

Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom said Wednesday that Abbas, widely known as Abu Mazen, must disarm the militants.

"If Abu Mazen would make the strategic decision that he has refused to make, to dismantle terror organizations and prevent them from carrying out activity from the Gaza Strip, believe me, on that same day all the operations in Gaza will stop," Shalom said.

Abbas is locked in a struggle with the militants for control of Gaza and has tried, unsuccessfully so far, to stop attacks against Israel. He has shied from forcibly disarming them, fearing that would provoke civil war.

Israel, meanwhile, raised the bar on the crackdown it has demanded.

A Palestinian legislator, Ziad Abu Zayyad, told Army Radio that Israel rejected a Palestinian Authority proposal that Israel stop targeting militants if they would lay down their arms. Israel insists on dismantling of the the violent groups.

Raanan Gissin, an aide to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, said, "We're not going to pay with Israeli lives while they are experimenting in trying to reach understandings with terror organizations and they continue to carry out terror attacks against us."

http://www.jnewswire.com/library/article.php?articleid=838

Thursday, November 03, 2005 21:03 IST
JNW HEADLINE NEWS

'Do you surrender yet?'
By Ryan Jones

November 3rd, 2005

Sounding as though it had won a great victory over the Jewish state, the Hamas terrorist organization Thursday laid out its terms for ceasing aggression against Israelis.

“We are not going to give calm without a price,” Gaza-based Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Zahar told Reuters, as the December deadline for renewing the current farcical terrorist truce fast approaches.

That price, Zahar said, is the release of all 8,000 terrorists currently jailed in Israel, and a complete halt to Israel's military efforts to defend its citizens from future attacks.

Over the past year, Israelis have been treated to the terrorists' idea of “calm,” which in the past two months since Israel's retreat from Gaza has actually consisted of an increase in violence.

In reality, the terrorists are “on the ropes,” as it were, and in no position to be setting ceasefire terms, security officials told The Jerusalem Post's Arieh O'Sullivan.

“Each night, security forces fan out across Judea and Samaria and detain suspected fugitives. Nearly 1,000 have been nabbed and brought in for questioning in the past few months. While many were eventually released, the arrest of key terrorists has decimated their ranks, particularly in Hamas,” writes O'Sullivan.

However, few in Israel expect the terror groups will be completely squashed amid mounting American pressure for Israel to “consider the consequences of its actions.”
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