GAZA CITY (AFP) – Hamas agreed on Monday to hold fire against Israel for 24 hours, but warned it would resume suicide attacks if the Jewish state launched an offensive against its Gaza stronghold.
The Islamists and other armed factions in Gaza have accepted "a calm for a 24-hour period following Egyptian mediation in exchange for the delivery of aid from Egypt," senior Hamas official Ayman Taha told AFP.
But Taha warned that Hamas would resume suicide attacks if Israel made good on its threats to unleash a major assault against the Gaza Strip, where the Islamists seized power in June 2007.
"It is our right as an occupied people to defend ourselves from the occupation by all means possible including suicide attacks," he said.
The last time Hamas carried out a suicide attack in Israel was in January 2005.
Israeli foreign ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor declined to comment on the Hamas statement, saying "we have not received any announcement, neither directly or indirectly, nor via Egypt."
Israel on Monday kicked off a campaign to muster international support for any major offensive to try to halt rocket fire from the impoverished Palestinian territory.
Tensions have mounted since the expiry on Friday of a six-month truce between Israel and Hamas in and around Gaza.
In a letter to UN chief Ban Ki-moon, Israel's envoy to the United Nations, Gabriela Shalev, said the government would respond to continuing rocket fire, Palmor said.
Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, leader of the main governing Kadima party, has ordered Israeli ambassadors around the world to emphasise that Israel "will not hesitate to react militarily if necessary" to protect its citizens.
She is also due to meet foreign ambassadors to Israel and speak with her counterparts abroad.
"The world must understand that the situation in southern Israel is intolerable for hundreds of thousands of citizens exposed to rocket fire," Palmor said.
"We cannot remain with our arms crossed. Either the international community intervenes or we will have to act," he told AFP.
The public relations effort came a day after Israel threatened a major offensive against the impoverished territory that has been ruled by Hamas since June last year.
The two frontrunners in the race to become prime minister after a snap election in February -- Livni and Benjamin Netanyahu, who heads the opposition Likud party currently leading in opinion polls -- both vowed to oust the Islamist movement, sworn to the Jewish state's destruction.
Violence around the enclave has escalated since Friday, when Hamas said it would not renew its truce with Israel, which came into effect after months of Egyptian mediation.
Since then, the army has carried out several air strikes, killing one militant and wounding several Palestinians, and militants have launched several dozen rockets into the Jewish state, wounding a handful of people.
Despite the bellicose rhetoric, observers say the Israeli government is wary of launching a major offensive less than two months before the general election for fear it would not be able to score a decisive victory against Hamas.
Defence Minister Ehud Barak, a former army chief, has made it clear he sees no reason to rush into a large-scale military operation, dismissing calls for an offensive as "the babble of politicians who have never seen war in their lives."
Israel responded to violence that erupted around Gaza in early November by tightening its blockade of the territory and blocking deliveries of humanitarian aid and other basic supplies.
The over-crowded and aid-dependent land of some 1.5 million people has been subject to Israeli blockades and repeated raids since 2006, when Hamas won parliamentary elections and later joined in a deadly cross-border raid which saw militants capture an Israeli soldier, who remains hostage to this day.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20081222/ts_afp/mideastconflictgaza_081222124026
Topic: Hamas agrees 24-hour Gaza truce, threatens suicide attacks (Read 638 times)