GAZA CITY, 16 December 2004 — Hamas yesterday canceled its 17th anniversary rally over concerns that Israel could target leaders of the Islamic group in retaliation for a deadly attack on an army outpost in Gaza.
Hamas rallies are elaborate shows of force, with marching gunmen, displays of weapons and re-enactments of attacks on Israelis.
The decision to cancel tomorrow’s rally comes at a time when Hamas is competing for power with rival factions, including the ruling Fatah movement. Displays of popular support are crucial both during the run-up to the Jan. 9 election for Palestinian Authority president and the planned Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip in 2005.
The cancelation came a day after the interim Palestinian leader, Mahmoud Abbas, said the armed uprising was a mistake and must end. Abbas, a pragmatist who opposes violence, is trying to negotiate a cease-fire with Hamas, which has killed hundreds of Israelis in bombings and shootings in the past decade.
The Hamas rally was to be held at a large sports stadium in Gaza City. The group had already put up a stage, bought chairs and decorated the streets of Gaza City with posters of former leaders Ahmed Yassin and Abdel Aziz Rantisi, both assassinated by Israel in air strikes earlier this year.
Hamas sources said there was renewed concern about the safety of Hamas leaders after a Hamas activist in Damascus, Syria, narrowly escaped a car bomb attack Monday. Hamas and Syria blamed Israel, which declined comment.
In Gaza City, Hamas spokesman Mushir Al-Masri said Friday’s rally was canceled “in view of Zionist threats to target the Palestinian masses” following a weekend bomb attack that killed five Israeli soldiers at a Gaza outpost.
In the attack, Hamas and members of a Fatah offshoot detonated 1.5 tons of explosives packed in a tunnel dug under the outpost. After the outpost bombing, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon reportedly asked the military to step up targeted killings of militants involved in attacks on soldiers and settlers in Gaza.
Hamas leaders have increasingly gone underground since the assassination of Yassin in April, switching homes, cars and phones and avoiding public appearances.
Yassin, a quadriplegic, founded Hamas in December 1987, several days after the outbreak of the first uprising against Israeli occupation. The group seeks Israel’s destruction and opposes a peace deal with the Jewish state. Hamas has carried out scores of bombings and shootings since 1987.
Abbas wants Hamas and other militants to halt attacks ahead of the Palestinian election but has not won an explicit promise. Hamas members have hinted that the group would hold off on attacks in Israel but not in the West Bank and Gaza.
Meanwhile, Palestinian hard-liners rejected yesterday a call by Abbas to lay down their weapons as a spiraling death toll in Gaza threatened to undermine his efforts to bring calm to the region.
Armed factions have so far rebuffed efforts by Abbas, the favorite to be elected Palestinian Authority president on Jan. 9, to institute a new cease-fire and firmly rejected his argument yesterday that the use of weapons since the September 2000 start of the second intifada had been a mistake.
His comments in a newspaper interview received short shrift from both Hamas and the smaller Islamic Jihad movement.
“Such declarations run counter to the consensus among our people over the legitimacy of the resistance,” Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri told AFP. “The problem is the Israeli occupation and not the resistance.”
Mohammed Al-Hindi, a leader of Jihad in its Gaza stronghold, said “the Palestinians need weapons of resistance against the Israeli occupation.”
“It is illogical that we are killed without having any measure of legitimate self-defense,” he said.
Elsewhere, a Palestinian was killed as he walked near an Israeli army post in central Gaza, Palestinian security officials said. The military said soldiers fired warning shots after several cars drove at high speed along a closed road.
Also yesterday, Israeli troops destroyed the house of a Hamas militant in the West Bank city of Hebron.
The house belonged to Iyad Abu Shakhidas, a militant the army said supplied the explosives to suicide bombers who carried out a double bombing in the city of Beersheba in August, killing 16 people.
