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Palestinians carry the body of a young man killed by Israel in Nablus
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By
Yasser el-Banna, IOL Correspondent
GAZA
CITY, December 27 (IslamOnline.net) - Hamas scorned Saturday, December
27, Israeli claims of not targeting its leaders as part of a crackdown
on Palestinian activists, and maintained that Israeli attacks on
Palestinian civilians foil efforts to spare civilians on both sides.
Sayed
Siyam, member of Hamas's political leadership, said Israeli Chief of
Staff Moshe Yaalon's statements that Israel will not target Hamas
leaders is aimed at "tarnishing the image of the
resistance".
He
told IslamOnline.net that Israel was only trying to drive a wedge
between Hamas and other Palestinian resistance factions.
Yaalon
claimed that Hamas halted all operations inside the Green Line because
its leaders have been spooked by the assassination attempts on their
lives.
An
Israeli security source said the Israeli top brass, under Defense
Minister Shaul Mofaz, decided to stop targeting Hamas leaders, but
would continue liquidating activists from the Islamic Jihad and the
Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).
A
PFLP activist blew himself up Thursday, December 25, as he was
approaching a bus station in Tel Aviv, killing four Israelis and
injuring 16 others.
"It
is nothing but illusions," Siyam stressed.
"Hamas
does not fear the Zionist enemy and is ready to pay the utmost
sacrifice to defend the Palestinian cause."
He
said Hamas shelled
Jewish settlements Wednesday, December 24, with Al-Qassam missiles,
causing damages and injuries.
He
also cited last week's detonation of a watchtower in the southern Gaza
Strip city of Rafah.
'Trick'
Atef
Edwan, a political analyst and professor of political science in the
Gaza-based Islamic University, described Yaalon's statements as a
"trick" designed to impair the image of Hamas, ruling out
that Israel was courting the resistance movement.
"Such
statements are insignificant and untrue. The history of the mind-set
of the Israeli military tells us that they do not only apply an eye
for an eye as an approach, but go far beyond that," he told IOL.
"Yaalon
wanted to portray Hamas as a movement, which gave up its jihad stand
and backtracked on striking at Israel's heart," Edwan cautioned.
He
also said Israel wanted to put Hamas on the defensive before both the
Arabs and the Palestinians.
A
Civilian For A Civilian
Asked
whether Hamas was committed to sparing Israeli civilians attacks,
Siyam said the idea has not been adopted at the first place.
"The
Zionist enemy has rebuffed it from the very beginning," he said.
Siyam
stressed that after the latest Gaza massacre and the killing of
civilians in Thursday's assassination
of Islamic Jihad leaders, the resistance approach should be "a
civilian for a civilian".
"The
Zionist enemy neither spares any of our people nor needs our operation
to justify its aggression. The raids in Rafah, Nablus and Gaza are all
a case in point," he said.
More
than eight Palestinians were
killed in an Israeli raid in southern Gaza, Tuesday,
December 23, in one of the bloodiest days in the occupied Palestinian
territories in recent months.
Khaled
al-Batch, an Islamic Jihad top official, said Friday, December 26,
that the assassination of three leaders of the movement had nipped in
the bud the idea of sparing civilians.
The
idea was one of the cornerstones on which the Cairo-hosted
inter-Palestinian dialogue had been based.
