GAZA CITY, 1 July 2006 — A defiant Hamas vowed yesterday it would not be cowed down by Israel after fighter jets blitzed Gaza, hitting the Interior Ministry building in the latest assault aimed at securing the release of a captured soldier. As the international community issued urgent appeals for restraint, Hamas said it was working toward freeing the 19-year-old corporal but said the “barbaric aggression” must be halted. “We are working to end this crisis but the aggression must stop and the siege has to be lifted,” Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh said in his first public comments on the crisis.
The airstrikes caused the first Palestinian casualties since Israel launched a ground offensive early Wednesday over the missing soldier, its biggest military operation since pulling out of Gaza in September.
Warplanes pounded Gaza in 30 air raids, hitting the Hamas-run Interior Ministry, weapons depots and Hamas training camps, but Israel suspended plans to send ground troops into the north of the territory.
A fighter from Islamic Jihad was killed in an overnight airstrike, and four of its members injured in another air raid later yesterday, while another fighter from the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, linked to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah party, was shot dead in the West Bank.
Egypt, which is leading mediation in the crisis, said Hamas had agreed to secure the release of the soldier, but that Israel had not agreed to the so far unspecified conditions.
“We are continuing our efforts and communications with the Egyptians, with the president (Abbas) and other parties to end this matter, but the Israeli escalation is putting up obstacles,” Haniyeh said.
Israel further ratcheted up the pressure on the Palestinian leadership by revoking the Jerusalem residency rights of a Hamas minister and three MPs, meaning their likely expulsion from the occupied East Jerusalem.
“The four are members of a terror organization dedicated to the destruction of the state of Israel. This contradicts the citizens’ commitment toward the state,” an Israeli Interior Ministry official told AFP. Israeli troops had rounded up scores of Hamas members the day before, including eight ministers — a third of the Palestinian Cabinet — and 24 MPs in a massive West Bank sweep.
“If the kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit does not return alive, there is no more Hamas government. Israel will erase this concept from the Middle Eastern political map,” warned Israeli newspaper Yediot Aharonot.
Haniyeh accused Israel of planning “open war” but vowed it would not topple his government, which took office in March but is boycotted politically and financially by the West.
“Our people are patient. They can arrest leaders, assassinate leaders, but our flag will not fall,” he said. Israel had called a halt Thursday to a planned incursion into northern Gaza amid international appeals for diplomatic efforts to free Shalit, seized in an attack on an army post last Sunday.
Israeli media said the delay was because of differences between Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and the army chief over how to proceed in the worst crisis since Hamas took office.
Yediot Aharonot said Olmert, who had warned he was prepared to take “extreme measures” to bring back Shalit, believed the operation would cause too many civilian casualties and heavy Israeli losses in one of the world’s most densely populated areas.
An opinion poll also revealed that 53 percent of Israelis considered “negotiation and international pressure” the best option while only 43 percent favored military action.
— With input from agencies
