Suicide attack "natural response to Israeli crimes"
The Islamist group Hamas defended on Friday a suicide bombing that killed four Israelis as "resistance" against Israeli "crimes", putting it at odds with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who condemned the attack.
Hours after the attack Israeli warplanes and artillery struck the Gaza Strip, though no casualties were reported.
A car explosion in Gaza later killed a top commander of the Popular Resistance Committees, a group behind many rocket attacks against Israel, Palestinian security sources said.
The group identified the commander as Khalil al-Quqa and accused Israel of being behind the explosion which killed him. The Israeli army had no immediate comment.
The conflicting statements of Hamas and Abbas on the West Bank suicide bombing were the first since the president swore in the Palestinian Authority's first Hamas government on Wednesday.
Abbas has said he could overrule the group, which is sworn to Israel's destruction, if it continues to block peacemaking.
The suicide bombing, claimed by al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, occurred days after Israeli leader Ehud Olmert's Kadima party won elections on a platform of setting Israel's borders in the occupied West Bank unilaterally in the absence of peace talks.
Palestinians say such a move would annex land and deny them the viable state they seek in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Israeli officials said the bomber, whose group is part of Abbas's Fatah faction, was disguised as a religious Jewish hitchhiker and blew himself up when Israelis in a car picked him up near a settlement late on Thursday.
A spokesman for Abbas told official Palestinian media that the president condemned the bombing and that he asked all factions to abide by a truce declared last year.
Hamas described the attack as a "natural response to Israeli crimes". Information Minister Youssef Rizqa said: "Resistance is a legitimate right for people under occupation." Read more
db: It's too much of a stretch to agree that killing civilians can ever be 'legitimate'. But for a fully legitimate response to the Israeli occupation and its own acts of 'terror' the Palestinians should be supplied with some tanks and stuff. Maybe F16s, some Apaches. Then we can start getting used to Hamas targeted strikes against 'known' Israeli terrorists. Starting with the guy in a coma. If per chance a few civilians happen to be in the vicinity - maybe some kids - that is regrettable - but it's not terrorism. Is it?
Given that it is unlikely the Israelis will condemn the killing of innocent Palestinian children through its 'targeted' assassinations, or via the 'legitimate' use of lethal force in response to stone throwing children, I see little hope that Hamas will condemn attacks like these.
Hours after the attack Israeli warplanes and artillery struck the Gaza Strip, though no casualties were reported.
A car explosion in Gaza later killed a top commander of the Popular Resistance Committees, a group behind many rocket attacks against Israel, Palestinian security sources said.
The group identified the commander as Khalil al-Quqa and accused Israel of being behind the explosion which killed him. The Israeli army had no immediate comment.
The conflicting statements of Hamas and Abbas on the West Bank suicide bombing were the first since the president swore in the Palestinian Authority's first Hamas government on Wednesday.
Abbas has said he could overrule the group, which is sworn to Israel's destruction, if it continues to block peacemaking.
The suicide bombing, claimed by al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, occurred days after Israeli leader Ehud Olmert's Kadima party won elections on a platform of setting Israel's borders in the occupied West Bank unilaterally in the absence of peace talks.
Palestinians say such a move would annex land and deny them the viable state they seek in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Israeli officials said the bomber, whose group is part of Abbas's Fatah faction, was disguised as a religious Jewish hitchhiker and blew himself up when Israelis in a car picked him up near a settlement late on Thursday.
A spokesman for Abbas told official Palestinian media that the president condemned the bombing and that he asked all factions to abide by a truce declared last year.
Hamas described the attack as a "natural response to Israeli crimes". Information Minister Youssef Rizqa said: "Resistance is a legitimate right for people under occupation." Read more
db: It's too much of a stretch to agree that killing civilians can ever be 'legitimate'. But for a fully legitimate response to the Israeli occupation and its own acts of 'terror' the Palestinians should be supplied with some tanks and stuff. Maybe F16s, some Apaches. Then we can start getting used to Hamas targeted strikes against 'known' Israeli terrorists. Starting with the guy in a coma. If per chance a few civilians happen to be in the vicinity - maybe some kids - that is regrettable - but it's not terrorism. Is it?
Given that it is unlikely the Israelis will condemn the killing of innocent Palestinian children through its 'targeted' assassinations, or via the 'legitimate' use of lethal force in response to stone throwing children, I see little hope that Hamas will condemn attacks like these.
posted by exoplanet at 8:42 PM
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