The Hindu : Hamas puts onus on Israel

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, May 31, 2003

International

International

Hamas puts onus on Israel

Gaza City May 30. The hardline Islamic movement Hamas today warned that it would only stop its suicide attacks if Israel halts all `aggression', and dismissed the significance of the meeting between the Israeli and Palestinian Prime Ministers to discuss a peace plan. ``There is a price to everything, stopping our martyr operations and attacks against (Israeli) civilians cannot occur without the enemy paying the price and stopping its aggression in all its forms,'' a top Hamas official, Abelaziz Rantissi, told AFP.

Palestinian militant groups usually refer to suicide attacks as ``martyr operations''.

Palestinians ``have not made all these sacrifices to obtain the liberation of one or two prisoners and the right for some workers to be allowed'' to go back to Israel, he said in reference to a package of Israeli measures to ease pressure on Palestinians and announced today by the Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon's office. ``What our people want is the release of every prisoner, the restitution of our land and holy places and a halt to the (Israeli) aggression,'' he added.

He stigmatised the Sharon-Abbas meeting yesterday as ``a denial of the rights of the Palestinian people''. — AFP

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