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Palestinian Authority Releases Hamas Leader
GAZA CITY, May 13 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - A leader of the Islamic occupation resistance movement, Hamas, Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi, was freed from detention Sunday by the Palestinian Authority after being held for more than two weeks, Hamas said in a statement put up on its web site.
Rantissi had been arrested April 29th by the Palestinian police for voicing his movement's opposition to a new Jordanian-Egyptian peace plan, saying it meant "putting the Intifada to death."
"The release of Rantissi is a step in the right direction to maintain understanding among Palestinians through this Intifada and it makes us stronger to face the Zionist terrorists," the statement said.
Rantissi has been arrested several times by the Palestinian police over the last few years.
He is one of the main founders of Hamas, or the Islamic Resistance Movement, and was previously held for nearly a year and a half before being released late last year along with dozens of other Palestinian activists, who strongly oppose Israeli occupation of Palestinian and Arab land.
In its annual report on global terrorism for the Middle East region, the U.S. labeled Hamas, and some groups such as Lebanon's national resistance movement Hezbollah, as "terrorists" and accused them of opposing the so-called peace-process. Hezbollah drove out Israeli forces from southern Lebanon after 19 years of occupation.
Israel, however, still maintains a military presence in the Shebaa Farms region, which Lebanon says is its national territory.
Hamas, the main resistance movement in the Palestinian occupied territories, was born soon after the previous Intifada erupted in 1987. The organization opposes the Oslo peace process and its short-term aim is a complete Israeli withdrawal from the Palestinian territories. Hamas does not recognize the right of Israel to exist on occupied Arab land.
Hamas is comprised of a political and military wing, and has an unknown number of members and tens of thousands of supporters and sympathizers.
Amongst its main functions, Hamas is involved in building schools and hospitals in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, and helps the community through a network of social and religious activities.
In February and March 1996, Hamas carried out several bus bombings, killing nearly 60 Israelis. It was also blamed for attacks in 1997 in Jerusalem, which killed 15 people.
Palestinian President Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority, the PA, has tried to co-opt the movement into mainstream politics.
But Arafat's insistence that Hamas recognize the PA as the only national authority in the Palestinian territories and cease military operations against Israel has been resisted.
Hamas argues that to accept the PA would be to recognize the Oslo accords - which resistance groups saw as nothing more than a security deal between the PA, Israel and the U.S., with the ultimate aim of wiping them out.
Despite a fierce offensive against the group in 1996, when the PA arrested some 1,000 Palestinians and took over mosques in Gaza, the PA has been careful not to drive Hamas underground.
Hamas is particularly strong in Gaza, where the economic conditions are worse than the West Bank.
The spiritual head of the group, Sheikh Ahmad Yassin, who was released from prison in Israel in 1997, as King Hussein of Jordan's price for freeing Israeli Mossad agents after a bungled attempt to assassinate Hamas leader Khaled Meshal in Jordan.
After his release, Yassin devoted his energies to rescuing Hamas's educational and charitable institutions after the damage inflicted on them during the 1996 crackdown against the movement.
Although in theory it is based in the Palestinian territories, it was long viewed that former Amman-based leaders were the real power brokers behind the movement's military arm.
Hamas was allowed to operate in Jordan - where almost half the population is Palestinian - by the late King Hussein, because it gave him leverage over Arafat.
But the group's headquarters was closed down by the king's successor, Abudullah, and senior figures were expelled to Qatar.
A Palestinian uprising that started in last August to protest an encroachment by the current Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on al-Aqsa Mosque, a Muslim holy site, has been a unifying force among the ranks of Palestinians.
As a result, the PA has released dozens of Islamist activists who have previously targeted Israel for its atrocities committed against the civilian Palestinian population.
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