MIDDLE EAST: Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak says army will react if Hamas escalates violence
Record ID:
791416
MIDDLE EAST: Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak says army will react if Hamas escalates violence
- Title: MIDDLE EAST: Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak says army will react if Hamas escalates violence
- Date: 28th March 2010
- Summary: KISSUFIM, ISRAEL (MARCH 26, 2010) (REUTERS) ISRAELI ARMY JEEPS ISRAELI SOLDIERS HELICOPTER FIRING SMOKE BILLOWING ABOVE GAZA STRIP FIELDS NEAR BORDER AREA KHAN YOUNIS, GAZA (MARCH 26, 2010) (REUTERS) PALESTINIANS LIVING ALONG BORDER WITH ISRAEL RUNNING AMIDST ISRAELI AIR STRIKES HELICOPTER FIRING ROCKETS PEOPLE RUNNING PEOPLE STANDING BESIDE AMBULANCE
- Embargoed: 12th April 2010 13:00
- Keywords:
- Topics: International Relations
- Reuters ID: LVA90TBH210V2JRVAEJPCULZYGK9
- Story Text: Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak said on Friday (March 26) that the Israeli army will react if Hamas escalates violence, after the bloodiest clash in the Hamas-ruled enclave in 14 months killed two soldiers and a Palestinian.
The violence underscored deadlock in U.S.-mediated contacts between Israel and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, whose peacemaking bids have been sapped by Hamas hostility along with continued Israeli settlement construction on occupied land.
"We have been used to seeing breakaway (Palestinian) groups doing the firing, and Hamas trying to calm things down. Possibly it is loosening its grip, for all sorts of reasons," Barak said in a television interview.
"Should that indeed prove to be the case, then there will also be ramifications for Hamas... If the other side will escalate (its activities), the Israeli Defence Forces will react," he said, but added: "We have no interest in returning the region to what was in the past. But we have no intention to give up our responsibility to protect the communities near Gaza border."
The impasse has triggered sporadic rocket attacks this month from Gaza which drew Israeli airstrikes. On Friday, Palestinians ambushed soldiers who, the army said, had crossed the border to dismantle a mine. Two infantrymen were killed and two wounded.
The skirmish -- in which the army said it believed it had killed two gunmen -- was the fiercest since the three-week Gaza war of early 2009. Some 1,400 Palestinians, mainly civilians, and 13 Israelis, mainly troops, died in that conflict.
Islamist Hamas spurns the Jewish state but has largely held fire since the war. It said its men took part in Friday's fighting, but only in order to repel the Israeli incursion.
Israel captured Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem from Egypt and Jordan in a 1967 war. It withdrew from Gaza in 2005 but has expanded Jewish settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Palestinians want statehood in all the territories.
Resisting U.S. pressure in what analysts called a bruising encounter with President Barack Obama in Washington this week, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel would not stop building in West Bank areas it annexed to East Jerusalem. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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