In an address to Hamas members, Gaza strongman Mahmoud Zahar
said the movement would resist peace efforts and criticized the Palestinian
president for joining the negotiations.
“Today marks the start of direct negotiations between
someone who has no right to represent the Palestinian people and the brutal
occupier, to provide a cover for Judaizing Jerusalem and stealing the land,”
Zahar said.
Hamas leaders have sharply criticized Abbas in recent days
for agreeing to resume negotiations with Israel.
“The enemy of the Palestinian people is the Zionist enemy,”
Zahar said.
Zahar rejected the idea of compromise with Israel, saying
that “liberating” all the land between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River —
a reference to Israel's destruction — is a moral and religious duty. He said
Palestinians must not abandon armed resistance against Israeli occupation.
Despite Zahar's tough words, it's unclear whether the
militants will try to derail the negotiations with more attacks or whether the
shooting was an isolated incident.
The group — shunned by the West and Israel as a terror
organization — possesses a large arsenal of rockets that it could launch at
Israeli border towns. But Hamas has largely refrained from attacks since
suffering heavy losses in an Israeli offensive early last year.
“We are not talking about revealing our cards now,” said
Hamas official Ahmed Yousef.
On Wednesday, Yesha Council, which represents the settlers,
symbolically restarted a handful of construction projects in the West Bank.
Israeli police did not interfere, but it's not clear how much the settlers
could realistically build.
Some 300,000 Israelis now live in West Bank settlements,
along with nearly 200,000 others in east Jerusalem. The Palestinians claim both
areas, captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war, for their future state.
