GAZA: SENIOR HAMAS OFFICIAL RULES OUT TRUCE WITH ISRAEL BUT SAYS ATTACKS MAY BE LIMITED IF ISRAEL STOP HARMING PALESTINIAN CIVILIANS

Record ID: 400450

  • Title: GAZA: SENIOR HAMAS OFFICIAL RULES OUT TRUCE WITH ISRAEL BUT SAYS ATTACKS MAY BE LIMITED IF ISRAEL STOP HARMING PALESTINIAN CIVILIANS
  • Date: 2nd November 2003
  • Summary: (W8) GAZA (NOVEMBER 2, 2003) (REUTERS - ACCESS ALL) 1. WIDE OF HAMAS SENIOR OFFICIAL ABDEL-AZIZ AL-RANTISSI SEATED WITH JOURNALIST 0.05 2. SCU MAN WRITING IN NOTEPAD 0.10 3. SCU (SOUNDBITE)(English) ABDEL-AZIZ AL-RANTISSI, HAMAS SENIOR OFFICIAL, SAYING: "As you know we will meet with Abu Ala. If he is going to speak about truce we are goin
  • Embargoed: 17th November 2003 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: GAZA
  • City:
  • Country: Palestinian Territories
  • Reuters ID: LVA2Y66FR1XO0H157HE7ZL35714H
  • Story Text: Hamas rules out total truce with Israel, willing to
    limit attacks.




    The Islamic group Hamas ruled out on Sunday
    (November 2) halting militancy in a three-year-old
    Palestinian revolt but said it could limit attacks to
    Israeli soldiers and settlers if the Jewish state stopped
    harming Palestinian civilians.

    The Palestinian Authority has been seeking a dialogue
    with militants on reining in violence to advance a
    U.S.-backed "road map" to peaceful statehood in the West
    Bank and Gaza Strip alongside Israel.

    Hamas Senior Official, Abdel-Aziz Al-Rantissi, spoke to
    reporters while still in hiding, in Gaza on Sunday.

    "As you know we will meet with Abu Ala. If he is going
    to speak about truce we are going to speak something else
    which is continuation of resistance by all means and we are
    ready at the same time to avoid civilians on both sides, if
    the Israelis are ready for that then we are ready. But as I
    said, a truce under aggression I believe it will be
    disastrous for the Palestinian people and Palestinian
    issue," Al- Rantissi said from an undisclosed location.

    As part of the latest tentative detente, Defence
    Minister Shaul Mofaz has been preparing to meet Palestinian
    officials, and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has said he
    would welcome talks with his Palestinian counterpart, Ahmed
    Qurie.

    Qurie said on Saturday (November 1) he was willing to
    take up the offer.

    But first he must resolve a dispute with Palestinian
    President Yasser Arafat. Failure to agree on the
    composition of the cabinet and distribution of security
    powers led Qurie to form a cabinet on a 30-day emergency
    basis. With that term expiring on Tuesday (November 4),
    there was still no agreement in sight.

    "Let us first to hear what Abu Ala will say, and then
    we can answer this question. Up 'til now I don't know, the
    real thinking of Abu Ala in that aspect," said Rantissi.

    Israel insists on an anti-militant crackdown by the
    Palestinian Authority as required by the road map.

    Palestinian officials say this would be tantamount to civil
    war.

    Israel allowed in more than 6,000 Palestinians to work
    on Sunday, in a tentative easing of the sweeping
    restrictions on movement that were publicly criticised by
    the army chief a few days ago.

    Israel had barred Palestinian travel within and out of
    the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip a month ago, cutting
    people off from workplaces, schools and services, after a
    Palestinian suicide bomber killed 21 people in the town of
    Haifa.

    But Israeli political sources say the belief is growing
    that Palestinian militant groups could exploit discontent
    in the occupied territories, and that Israel must shore up
    the Palestinian Authority, which is formally committed to
    the U.S.-backed "road map" peace plan.

    Lieutenant-General Moshe Yaalon last week embarrassed
    the government by telling newspaper columnists that the
    blockades, imposed after the uprising for statehood erupted
    three years ago, were driving more Palestinians into
    violent resistance.

    Until then, 150,000 Palestinians made a living in
    Israel, so Sunday's restoration of 15,000 Israeli work
    permits is still only a drop in the ocean.

    Every other period of relief from the restrictions has
    ended after another big militant attack -- such as the
    October 4 suicide attack in Haifa that triggered the latest
    closure of the West Bank and Gaza.

    Arafat told reporters in the West Bank city of Ramallah
    on Sunday that the cabinet would be complete "within days".

    Asked if Palestinian talks with Israel had been held
    recently, he said: "Until now officially no, not yet. But
    we are ready."
    Sharon flew to Moscow on Sunday, planning to ask Russia
    to stop a U.N. Security Council vote to endorse the "road
    map".

    Israel trusts only the United States, its chief ally,
    to oversee the plan, which outlines reciprocal steps to
    defuse the uprising and establish a Palestinian state.

    Six soldiers suffered light injuries on Sunday when
    militants detonated a roadside bomb in the old city of
    Nablus in the West Bank. Islamic Jihad said it had carried
    out the attack.



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