Hamas urges Palestinian groups to strike Israel after raid

07/10/2002| IslamWeb

The resistance Islamist group Hamas called on all Palestinian Resistance organisations to strike Israel after an Israeli raid in the Gaza Strip which left at least 11 Palestinians dead."This massacre is one of a series by the Zionist occupation aimed at destroying all Palestinians, including children, women and elderly people," charged Abdel Aziz Rantissi, a senior Hamas leader.

"After this massacre, the Palestinian people lost security in Khan Yunis. Is it fair that there should be security in Tel Aviv?", he told AFP.

"We are asking all Palestinian military groups -- the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the Al-Quds Brigades, the Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades, the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine -- to escalate their operations and strike everywhere in Israel," he said.

Israeli tanks, backed by helicopters and bulldozers, stormed the autonomous southern Gaza Strip town of Khan Yunis Monday morning, killing at least 10 Palestinians and wounding around 40, Palestinian hospital sources said.

Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat on Monday slammed the Israeli raid saying it was a lead-up to a full reoccupation of the Palestinian territory.

"The Palestinian Authority condemns this ugly massacre which is part of preparations to reoccupy the Gaza Strip," he told AFP.

"We blame Israel for this and it bears full responsibility for this massacre and its consequences," he said.

The Israeli occupation army has almost fully reoccupied the other Palestinian territory of the West Bank since June, when it invaded in the wake of a spate of deadly Resistance bombings.

Since taking control of the larger northern territory, it has increasingly focused its raids on the Gaza Strip, the stronghold of resistance Islamic groups who believe a full invasion is imminent.

Israeli commentators have however warned of the dangers of a full re-occupation of the densely populated and narrow strip, where more than a million people are crammed into a series of refugee camps and the sprawling Gaza City.

PHOTO CAPTION

Masked Palestinian members of Hamas march in the Jabalay refugee camp in the northern Gaza strip to protest against the U.S. position on Jerusalem, October 4, 2002. Palestinian groups on Thursday urged Arabs and Muslims to boycott all U.S. products in response to a new law requiring the United States to identify Jerusalem as Israel's capital in official documents. Palestinians want East Jerusalem, captured along with the West Bank and Gaza Strip in the 1967 Middle East War, as the capital of a future state. REUTERS/Ahmed Jadallah