MIDDLE EAST: Hamas has ruled out any truce with Israel and has repeated its desire to destroy the Jewish state, rejecting what had appeared to be more conciliatory comments by one of the Islamic militant group's leaders.
"There is no talk about a truce now at all," Mahmoud Al-Zahar, a top Hamas leader, said yesterday. "Our strategy is to liberate all Palestinian soil," referring to the West Bank, Gaza and Israel.
Hassan Youssef, the top Hamas official in the West Bank, said on Friday the group could accept the creation of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza and a long-term truce with Israel, signalling a possible new overture to end hostilities.
The Palestine Liberation Organisation's leader, Mahmoud Abbas, has been trying to persuade militant groups to halt attacks against Israel to smooth the path of a presidential election in January to succeed Yasser Arafat, who died last month.
Hamas has killed hundreds of Israelis in suicide bombings and attacks. Palestinian officials are worried further assaults could provoke Israeli retaliation and disrupt the presidential election, the first since 1996.
Zahar said that although Hamas would boycott the presidential vote, it would consider taking part in the Palestinian legislative election, scheduled for the spring. "Our will to participate in the election is a national demand after the long-standing system of corruption affected the national goal, the internal integrity of the Palestinian people," Zahar said.
Hamas expressed interest in joining the Fatah-controlled Palestinian government after the Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, unveiled his plan to withdraw from Gaza in 2005. Zahar said the group had already begun talks with Fatah over Gaza's future. Israel, fearing a militant takeover of the territory after the pullout, had pushed for Egypt to train Palestinian security officers to maintain control of it.