A rchive Date
[ 29-03-2002 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ Palestine ]
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[http://canoe.ca/CNEWSTopNews/palest_mar28-ap.html
Militant Palestinians vow to continue attacks
By HUSSEIN DAKROUB-- Associated Press
Thursday, March 28, 2002
BEIRUT (AP) -- The Arab peace initiative to Israel on Thursday ignored many of the Palestinian people's aspirations and "all kinds of resistance" will continue, said Hamas, the Islamic militant group dedicated to the destruction of Israel.
On Wednesday, Hamas claimed responsibility for a lethal suicide bombing that killed 20 people at a hotel in the Israeli resort town of Netanya.
"The summit resolutions are below the aspirations and the sacrifices of the Palestinian people," said Osama Hamdan, Hamas' representative in Lebanon. "The resolutions ignored a lot of the Palestinian people's demands."
The overture, endorsed Thursday by the Arab League at a two-day summit in Beirut, offered Israel peace, recognition and "normal relations" in exchange for an Israeli withdrawal from war-conquered Arab lands, creation of a Palestinian state with east Jerusalem as its capital and a "just solution" for Palestinian refugees.
Hamas, which has conducted a string of deadly attacks during the 18-month Palestinian intefadeh, or uprising, said it sent a suicide bomber who killed 20 people and wounded more than 130 others Wednesday at a Passover dinner at a Netanya hotel.
In Gaza City, Hamas spokesman Abdel Aziz Rantisi said the Arab summit did not change anything for his group, whose aim is to destroy Israel.
"As long as there is occupation, there will be a resistance. So we say it clearly: Occupation should be stopped and then there will be something else," Rantisi said.
"I believe that the resistance and the intefadeh will continue in all forms," Hamdan said. Asked if "all forms" includes suicide bombings, he replied: "The type of operation is left for Hamas' military wing to decide."
Rantisi denied the Netanya bombing was timed to coincide with the Arab summit, which convened about seven hours before the bombing.
The Palestinian Authority said it "strongly condemned" the Netanya attack. Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat ordered the arrests of key members of Hamas and two other militant groups, Islamic Jihad and Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade, a militia linked to Arafat's Fatah movement.
In Beirut, Hamdan said that, instead of offering Israel peace, the Arab summit "should have cut all kinds of relations and contacts with the Zionist entity."
"We want a clear commitment to the right of return to the Palestinian refugees" and "clear resolutions in support of the resistance and the intefadeh, he said. "The Palestinian people want an Arab boycott in the face of Israeli aggression and terrorism against them."
The peace initiative's call for a "just solution" for the refugee problem was based on UN resolutions that call for refugees either to return to land they lost in Israel or receive compensation.
Despite Hamas' hardline stance on peace with Israel, a statement released by the group in Beirut noted what it called "positive elements" in the summit's final statement -- praise and support of the Palestinian uprising, the distinction it made between terrorism and resistance and a "breakthrough" in relations between Iraq and Kuwait.
 World Fact Book (CIA)]
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