“If there something new in parallel with our offer, we have no problem to study it,” Yassin

By Mustafa El-Sawwaf, IOL Palestine Correspondent  

GAZA, June 16 (IslamOnline.net) - Islamic resistance movement Hamas said Sunday, June 15, it could consider an all-out truce if the Israeli government offered a parallel initiative, in a fresh effort to end a week of lethal violence in the turbulent area.

“If there is something new in parallel with our offer, we have no problem to study it,” Hamas spiritual leader Ahmed Yassin said in an interview with IslamOnline.net.

“We are not a frozen movement. There is change in political attitudes, but beliefs are rather fixed,” said Yassin, whom Israel said he was targeted.

Hamas said that they would give up resistance attacks on Israel only if the Jewish state gave up its daily aggressions and other escalations against the Palestinians.

Israel said these practices are necessary for its own security, refusing to allow more than three million refugees it had ousted since 1948 to return to their homeland.

The Hamas leader said that the group is too careful to protect both Israeli and Palestinians from suffering the scourge of war.

“So Israel should set free all of Palestinian captives and halt its terrorist policies of assassination and destruction,” he said.

The current spike in violence was triggered off when Israeli helicopter gunships attacked a car carrying Hamas leader Abdel-Aziz al-Rantissi on Tuesday, June 10. Rantissi escaped with slight injuries, amid Hamas vows for revenge.

U.S. President George W. Bush said he was “deeply troubled” by the attempt on Rantissi’s life, which came few days after he attended a peace summit in Jordan with Israeli and Palestinian premiers.

According to an Israeli poll published Friday, June 13, two-thirds of Israelis want a halt to Israel's practice of assassinating Palestinian activists, which escalated in recent days.

Sheikh Yassin’s remarks came before his meeting with an Egyptian delegation sent by the Arab country to negotiate an end to the heightened tension.

The Hamas spiritual leader did not gave a direct answer when asked whether he would make good on its commitments.

“We carry out our duty,” he said.

He lashed out at the Palestinian government for taking steps “backwards, and bowing out to U.S. and Israeli pressures.”

Sheikh Yassin said that Hamas did not agree to hold new talks with Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas’ government. The group broke off talks with the government after Abbas vowed in a peace summit in Jordan earlier this month to crack down on “violence and terrorism” and halt the “the militarization” of Intifada to Israeli occupation.

“We made it clear that if Israel ended all aggression against Palestinians and released all captives, we go back to the negotiation table and discuss a plan” for future steps, the Hamas spiritual leader added.

In a step that would rather escalate the situation in the restive region, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon insisted Sunday, June 15, that the Jewish state will continue its controversial policy of assassinations.

The contradicting developments come only hours after Israeli and Palestinian officials were reportedly near agreement on an Israeli withdrawal from parts of the Gaza Strip and Bethlehem.

Seven Israeli helicopter strikes on the Gaza Strip since May 10 have left 27 people dead, including several civilians as well as six members of Hamas.

Sharon’s defiant remarks came as U.S. President George W. Bush called on the international community to "deal harshly" with Hamas, and as a leading Republican lawmaker said Washington might send forces to help stop the group’s attacks against Israeli targets.

The U.S. and Israel shrugged off a proposal by U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan calling for the dispatch of an international peacekeeping force to stem the spiraling violence in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell demanded Arab states to crack down hard on Palestinian resistance factions especially Hamas.

But Rantissi said that Hamas does not “expect Arab countries to heed to these calls,” or abandon their support for a legitimate Palestinian resistance.

Rantissi Saturday shrugged off an Israeli truce proposal as a surrender to the occupation, asserting that as long as the occupation remains, resistance against Israeli soldiers and settlers would continue.