GAZA: Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh refuses to moderate the policies of Hamas as Israel lauch second air strike in two days

Record ID: 341501

  • Title: GAZA: Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh refuses to moderate the policies of Hamas as Israel lauch second air strike in two days
  • Date: 7th April 2006
  • Summary: (BN10) GAZA CITY, GAZA (APRIL 8, 2006) (REUTERS) HUNDREDS OF MOURNERS MARCHING IN FUNERAL PROCESSION FOR PALESTINIANS KILLED IN ISRAELI AIR STRIKE BODIES BEING CARRIED ON STRETCHERS WIDE VIEW OF FUNERAL MARCH
  • Embargoed: 22nd April 2006 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: International Relations
  • Reuters ID: LVAEBNORFXWS5K7B5XF0644BW6BA
  • Story Text: Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh said on Saturday (April 8) his government would not bow to foreign pressure to recognise Israel and disavow violence despite funding cuts that are pushing the Palestinian Authority to financial collapse.
    As Haniyeh stood firm on his refusal to moderate the policies of his militant Islamist Hamas movement, Israel stepped up pressure with a second deadly air attack against militants in two days. Two gunmen died as they drove in their car.
    Since taking office last week, Haniyeh has faced violence with Israel which prompted vows of revenge by Hamas's armed wing as well as a clash with the international community over aid and tension with President Mahmoud Abbas over his powers.
    The United States and the European Commission suspended direct aid on Friday to Haniyeh's new Hamas-led government until it renounced violence, recognised Israel's right to exist and supported internationally-backed Middle East peace initiatives.
    "The attempts to strangle the government has one aim," Haniyeh said. "(But) they will not extract political concessions from us that will harm the rights of the Palestinian people," he said at the opening of a children's art exhibition in Gaza.
    Hamas, a fundamentalist Islamic movement that is sworn to Israel's destruction and has carried out many suicide bombings, won a sweeping victory in parliamentary elections in January.
    In the latest strike on Saturday, Israel fired a missile at a car ferrying militants back after firing rockets into Israel. Two militants from the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades were killed.
    On Friday, in the deadliest strike in five months, missiles hit a car leaving a militant training base in the southern Gaza Strip, killing five militants and the five-year-old son of one of them who came to watch his father train.
    Khaled Abu Hilal, a spokesman for the Hamas-controlled Interior Ministry in charge of security matters, said he supported calls by Hamas's armed wing to avenge the air strike.
    "Our people have the right to keep the arms of resistance and to respond to the aggression," he told reporters. "We understand the need of our fighters for training bases to rebuild themselves. We will secure that," he added.
    Hamas's armed wing has largely abided by a year-old truce and kept a lid on its rhetoric in recent months.
    Haniyeh and Abbas failed to resolve a dispute over powers in late night talks on Friday over Abbas's decisions this week to assume control of Gaza's border crossings and make a high-level security appointment.
    In an interview with Britain's Guardian newspaper, Abbas said any attempt by Israel to unilaterally set its borders would delay rather than solve a resolution to the conflict.
    "After 10 years our sons will feel it is unfair and they will return back to the struggle," he said.
    Despite the aid cuts, the United States said in its announcement in Washington it would boost humanitarian assistance to the Palestinians through U.N. agencies to avoid widespread economic distress in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
    The cuts have left Haniyeh's new government scrambling to find ways of paying 140,000 workers employed by the Palestinian Authority who support about a third of the 3.8 million population in the territories.
    In the West Bank, merchants complained of a rise in bounced cheques and government employees began tightening their belts in expectation their salaries would not be paid this month.
    Hamas has appealed to Arab states and Iran to fill the shortfall, but has not even been able to find a bank willing to handle its finances.
    Even before the aid cut-off, many Palestinians struggled to subsist in an economy suffering from widespread poverty, high unemployment and rife with corruption.
    Israel has stopped turning over about $50 million a month in taxes and customs revenue it collected on behalf of the Palestinians under previous agreements and its banks have begun cutting ties with the Palestinians.
    Diplomats said the European freeze covered all direct aid to the Palestinian government and payment of public employees' salaries with EU funds through the World Bank, but not humanitarian aid through non-governmental organisations.
    The EU has been the main donor to the Palestinian Authority since its creation under the 1993 Oslo peace accords.
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