Hamas calls for new attacks on Israel

[oberliner]

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - The Islamic militant group Hamas on Sunday called for new attacks on
Israel after eight Palestinians were killed in a surge of fighting over the weekend.

Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum urged Palestinians to be prepared for a new round of confrontation.

"The blood of our people is not cheap," he said in a statement faxed to The Associated Press. "Therefore we are calling on ... (Hamas' armed wing) and the Palestinian resistance groups to be united in the trench of resistance and to use all possible means of resistance and to respond to the massacres."

Eight Palestinians were killed during a 24-hour surge in violence in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, including two militants killed early Sunday during an arrest raid in the West Bank city of Nablus. The fighting also included a Palestinian rocket attack on the southern Israeli town of Sderot that damaged one home but caused no injuries.

The violence has threatened a cease-fire declared last November between Israel and Palestinian militants in Gaza. Palestinian officials have also said it jeopardized their efforts to expand the truce to the West Bank.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070422/ap_on_re_mi_ea/palestinians_hamas_2

[eagler]

1. Both sides are talking about war this summer.

[Eugene]

2. Hamas says it fired rockets at Israel from Gaza

Source: Reuters

Hamas says it fired rockets at Israel from Gaza
24 Apr 2007 04:30:57 GMT
Source: Reuters

GAZA, April 24 (Reuters) - The armed wing of the militant group
Hamas said on Tuesday it had launched rockets into Israel from Gaza
to avenge Israeli attacks on West Bank Palestinians, in what would
be its first such strikes in five months.

An Israeli army spokesman said six mortar shells were fired from the
Gaza Strip early on Tuesday and had fallen in Israel but he could not
confirm rocket strikes. There were no reports of casualties.

Hamas, which won a parliamentary election last year, had agreed to
a ceasefire in November but had said it would respond to killings of
Palestinians. Israel shot dead nine Palestinians, including five
militants, in the West Bank over the weekend.

-snip-

Read more: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L24630542.htm

[pelsar]

3. 1500 kassams....

since the "ceasefire"......glad to know that they agreed to it

[henank]

4. Hamas has fired 10 rockets and over a dozen mortars

The army and the police said ten Qassam rockets and over a dozen mortar shells landed in open fields in the western Negev.

No injuries were reported but police said damage to property has been reported by residents of an unidentified community.

The army responded by dispatching helicopters to intercept the gunmen behind the attacks. Missiles were fired at grounds used to wage the attacks, the army said.

The brigades claimed they fired 28 Qassam rockets and 61 mortar shells at Israel on Tuesday morning.

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3391429,00.html

[Eugene]

5. Hamas: Truce with Israel at end

Source: Associated Press

Hamas: Truce with Israel at end

By IBRAHIM BARZAK, Associated Press Writer
53 minutes ago

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - Hamas militants fired a barrage of rockets
and mortar shells toward Israel on Tuesday and said they considered
a five-month truce with Israel to have come to an end.

Tuesday's attack, which came on Israel's 59th independence day,
did not cause damage or injury. However, it marked the first time
Hamas openly acknowledged firing shells toward Israel since it
agreed to a cease- fire along the Gaza-Israel border in November.

A spokesman for Hamas' armed wing said the group considered the
truce to have come to an end. "The cease-fire has been over for a
long time and Israel is responsible for that," the spokesman, Abu
Obeida, told the Voice of Palestine radio station.

-snip-

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070424/ap_on_re_mi_ea/palestinians_hamas

[oberliner]

6. Hamas attempt to kidnap IDF soldier thwarted

IDF officials say firing of rockets, mortars at Israel on Independence Day mere diversion to allow Hamas gunmen to kidnap IDF soldier as part of more extensive operation; army was prepared for such a scenario, Southern Command forces responded correctly, they say.

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3391544,00.html

[Englander]

7. "What cease-fire?"

What cease-fire?
By Amira Hass

Talking about making and breaking a cease-fire spares the Palestinians from having to admit the failure of their Qassam missile publicity stunts. Proposals to widen the cease-fire to the West Bank sidestep any need for an inter-Palestinian debate on the destructive uselessness of a suicide-based "armed struggle."

"Cease-fire" is yet another hollow term, showing that the Palestinian representatives - elected or not, Hamas or Fatah or Palestine Liberation Organization-Tunis, from Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas to the last spokesman of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' "Brigades" - keep falling into the traps set for them by the politics of Israeli occupation.

Talking for and against the cease-fire fits in with the distorted picture of reality that Israel has been constructing since September 2000, of two symmetric, fighting sides - in which the Palestinians are the aggressors and Israel, attacked, defends itself and retaliates.

On the Saturday and Sunday before the Palestinians "broke the cease-fire," Israel Defense Forces soldiers killed nine Palestinians. Among them was a 17-year-old girl, a 15-year-old boy and a policeman who was on the roof of his house and was not involved in any "battle."

>snip

But even if none of the nine had been killed, there would have been no cease-fire on Saturday and Sunday, just as there was no cease-fire last week and in the weeks before that. Because the military occupation, even when it does not kill, is Israeli fire, which has not ceased for 40 years - regardless of the Palestinians' reactions or lack thereof.

Israeli fire includes the Civil Administration's every refusal of a permit to build a Palestinian house, every person who is denied passage from Gaza to the West Bank, every shekel of tax money that is not transferred to the Palestinians, every roadblock in the West Bank, every dunam of land stolen since June 1967, and every settlement - old or new, big or small, within the Israeli consensus or not. Neither the Qassams nor any negotiations process has managed to stop this Israeli fire.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/852315.html

[bemildred]

8. The agonist takes this up too.

I was surprised to see Mr. Kelly comenting on this. He seems to have widened his horizons.

Attempted Kidnapping Or Reprisal?

http://agonist.org/sean_paul_kelley/20070425/attempt_to_kidnap_an_israeli_soldier_or_reprisal

[Name removed]

9. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[bemildred]

10. Palestinians: We'll fire rockets if IDF continues West Bank raids

A delegation of Egyptian security officials told Israel on Thursday that the rocket salvos from the Gaza Strip could resume if Israel did not halt its military operations in the West Bank, the Reuters news agency reported.

The officials also said that the heads of the Palestinian factions are willing to resume the relative calm in the Gaza Strip if the Israel Defense Forces ends its operations in the territories.

The message was delivered to Israel by an Egyptian mediator who has been trying to prevent a major confrontation after the Hamas military wing fired a barrage of rockets and mortars Tuesday and declared the Gaza truce dead, Palestinian sources familiar with the talks said.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/852619.html