This item is available on the Militant Islam Monitor website, at http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/966
August 14, 2005
Hamas Says Gaza Withdrawal Won't End Fighting
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/13/AR2005081300895_pf.html
Reuters
Sunday, August 14, 2005; A22
GAZA CITY, Aug. 13 -- The Islamic Resistance Movement, or Hamas, vowed Saturday to continue its armed campaign against Israel after Jewish settlers and troops protecting them leave the Gaza Strip. It sent a message to Palestinians celebrating the impending withdrawal, saying that resistance is key to ending occupation and achieving statehood. "Wherever there is occupation, there is resistance. Gaza will not be first and last," senior leader Ismail Haniyah said at a news conference attended by at least 10 Hamas co-founders and leaders. "Hamas affirms its commitment to resistance as a strategic choice until the occupation withdraws from our land and our holy sites," he said. Hamas, which is dedicated to Israel's destruction, showcased its leaders and political message one day after thousands attended the Palestinian Authority's beachfront celebration of the planned Israeli pullout, which is to begin Monday. The authority's president, Mahmoud Abbas, said the evacuation of all of Israel's 21 settlements in Gaza and four of 120 in the West Bank would inevitably lead to a Palestinian state. The Palestinian Authority put its security forces on their highest alert level ahead of deployment on Sunday near settlements. They are charged with preventing any bid by gunmen to disrupt the pullout. Israeli police commissioner Moshe Karadi said police would go on high alert in southern Israel on Sunday and put up roadblocks to ensure that more pullout opponents do not slip into Gaza settlements to join about 3,000 protesters already there. ------------------------- http://www.israelnationalnews.com/print.php3?what=news&id=87646 Sunday, August 14, 2005 / 9 Av 5765 This item is available on the Militant Islam Monitor website, at http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/966
PA chief negotiator Saeb Erekat told reporters in London that Arabs view Israel's unilateral expulsion as proof that terrorism works. He told Israeli TV the PA is proving its diplomacy won out.
Erekat told the Totally Jewish web site in England that many Arabs see the planned pullout as a victory for terrorism. "Israel failed to weigh the consequences of its actions in not negotiating with us," he said.
The chief negotiator for the Palestinian Authority (PA) explained that Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists "will claim they got you out like Hezbollah got you out from South Lebanon, kicking you in the ass" with suicide and rocket attacks.
If further negotiations for a new Arab state do not follow the planned expulsion, there will be more violence, Erekat warned.
"I want to see members of the Israeli government asking them to make the PLO a partner to the disengagement plan as part of negotiations, as part of a peace process between the PLO and the Israeli government," he stated, referring to the umbrella organization formerly headed by Yasser Arafat.
However, Erekat told Israeli Channel One television this week that the PA is telling its public that "cooperation and coordination, not Kassam" rockets made Israel withdraw from Arab cities in Judea and Samaria and agree to the expulsion of Jewish residents from northern Samaria and the Gaza region.
He added that a meeting this week between armed Hamas terrorists and PA chairman Abu Mazen (Mahmoud Abbas) "was a direct challenge" to the PA.
The London-based Al-Quds Arabic newspaper quoted Erekat as saying that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon warned Abu Mazen during their last meeting that the PA leader would meet the same fate as Arafat if he did not stop terrorism during the planned expulsion.
During the Oslo War, Israel bombarded Arafat's headquarters in Ramallah, where he was confined until shortly before his death last year