Hamas renews call for ceasefire with Israel
First Published 2008-02-12
Will Israel accept the Hamas ceasefire offer this time?
Hamas renews call for ceasefire with Israel
Hamas calls for long-term ceasefire between Palestinians resistance, Israeli occupation.
JERUSALEM - A Hamas official on Tuesday renewed calls for a ceasefire amid mounting Israeli demands for a broad military offensive in the Gaza Strip.
Writing in the Israeli daily Haaretz, Ahmed Yussef, a Hamas foreign policy advisor, called for a long-term ceasefire between Palestinian militants and Israeli forces.
"If the people of (the southern Israeli town of) Sderot want to know why rockets continue to land around them, they should ask their own government why it has continually rejected our calls for a ceasefire and continued its policy of daily incursions and reckless targeting that put the whole population at risk," he wrote.
Yussef pointed out that his democratically movement observed a unilateral ceasefire for the nine months before it won parliamentary elections in January 2006 and for six months thereafter.
He told AFP that Hamas was not aiming for a wider confrontation, but had a "political vision aimed at achieving a long truce."
"If there were a sincere Israeli movement towards a truce, in terms of easing the siege and opening the crossings and allowing freedom of movement between the West Bank and Gaza, that would be the basis," Yussef said.
But "if Israel continues with its heavy-handed policies, the confrontation will remain open and the conflict will continue," he said, adding that Hamas was not seeking direct talks with Israel.
But Israel continues to claim that its attacks on Gaza are in response to the rocket and mortar attacks.
It also said that while Hamas itself may have refrained in the past from firing rockets, it did not stop other militant groups from doing so.
However, the reluctance to crack down on other groups is rooted in Hamas's core belief that armed resistance is the only way to end the Israeli occupation.
Since the democratically elected resistance movement Hamas seized power in the coastal strip in June, Israel has imposed more restrictions on the already besieged Palestinian territory.
At the same time Palestinian militants have lobbed rockets and mortar rounds at Israeli towns near the Gaza border, but rarely wounding anyone.
Most of the firing has come from smaller groups like Islamic Jihad and the Popular Resistance Committees, but Hamas does not want to be seen as halting attacks against what Palestinians see as a long, brutal, and illegal Israeli occupation.
Hamas rockets could be aimed at forcing truce
Hamas's decision to renew rocket and mortar attacks on Israel could be aimed at securing a truce rather than a wider confrontation, analysts said on Tuesday.
"With the escalation of rocket fire Hamas is aiming to push Israel towards a truce, not a confrontation," saud Naji Shirab, professor of political science at Al-Azhar University in Gaza.
He added that Hamas was the only power in Gaza capable of controlling the restive territory.
The democratically elected Palestinian movement insists that the attacks on southern Israeli towns and military positions constitute "legitimate resistance" against Israeli assaults on the Palestinian territory as well as Israel's continuous occupation.
"We want there to be a balance of terror in order to rein in (Israeli) aggression," Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhum said.
Hamas resumed rocket attacks on January 15, after an Israeli incursion killed 19 Gazans. Hamas had previously halted fire for several months.
"The pressure from Sderot (a town frequently targeted) on the Israeli government comes from the strikes and the resistance," Barhum added.
Some analysts believe Hamas may be looking for a third party to act as midwife to some kind of agreement, perhaps involving the release of Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier seized in June 2006 in a deadly cross-border raid.
"Hamas knows Israel has plans prepared to eliminate it and this pushes it to look for another party like Egypt to arrive at a real calm," said Jihad Hamad, another Gaza-based professor.
"There will be great pressure on Hamas in the coming weeks," Hamad said. "Hamas will try to achieve a period of calm and maybe even give positions back to the Palestinian Authority."
Hamas has at various times observed a unilateral ceasefire in which it halted all attacks on Israel.
