OCCUPIED JERUSALEM (Agencies)
Israel vowed on Thursday to keep up pressure on Gaza, as Hamas called on the Palestinian president to break off peace talks after Israeli raids killed 24 people in two days.
"The military and economic pressure as well as the international isolation of the Gaza Strip will end up producing results," Deputy Prime Minister Haim Ramon told army radio.
The comments came after an explosion of violence in Gaza that has seen 24 people, both civilians and militants, killed over the course of two days despite renewed peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians.
Ramon once again ruled out Israel holding any talks with Hamas, the Islamic Resistance Movement which violently seized control of Gaza seven months ago.
He said Israel would stop its operations if militants in the impoverished territory stopped firing rockets and mortars.
More than 120 Palestinians, most of them militants, have died in the strikes since the two sides formally re-launched the Middle East peace process in late November.
On Wednesday, five people died in Gaza from Israeli fire, including a teenage boy, his father and his uncle, who were killed when an Israeli missile struck a civilian car in what the army said was an error.
The previous day 19 Palestinians, most of them Hamas militants including the son of senior leader Mahmoud Zahar, were killed in clashes with Israeli troops.
In response, Hamas fired off a salvo of rockets for the first time in several months into Israel, lightly wounding more than 10 people. |
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Meshaal appeal Meanwhile, Hamas called on Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Wednesday to sever U.S.-backed peace talks with Israel after attacks by the Jewish state killed more than 20 Palestinians in the last two days.
Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal also told a news conference in Damascus that the killings in Gaza and in the occupied West Bank had dashed prospects for a prisoners' exchange deal involving an Israeli soldier held by Hamas since 2006.
"Condemning aggression is not enough. The Palestinian Authority's presidency must stop the talks," Meshaal said. "Every day you're being humiliated at the negotiating table and getting nothing. Halt this useless process," he added.
The recent killings have enraged the Islamist group, which opposes Israeli-Palestinian peace talks launched after the Annapolis peace conference, hosted by the United States in November.
Abbas also condemned the killings as a "massacre" and called a three-day mourning period in Gaza and the West Bank.
Acknowledging Israeli military superiority, Meshaal said Israel's strategy of targeting Palestinian fighters and keeping up a siege on Gaza, which Hamas controls, will not bring peace.
Addressing Israeli leaders, he said: "You will sink in Palestinian blood. It will be your curse. The will of the Palestinians will not be broken.
"I tell the ... enemy. What you're committing will deprive you of anything you're betting on. There will be no exchange involving Gilad Shalit, no calm or nothing of this sort," Meshaal said, referring to the Israeli soldier captured in 2006.
Egypt has been trying to mediate a deal to release Shalit in exchange for Palestinians held by Israel. Hamas has been demanding the release of 1,400 out of more than 10,000 Palestinians in Israeli jails in exchange for Shalit.
Meshaal lives in exile in Syria along with several high-level members of Hamas. |
