Israel won’t talk with Hamas

Israel won’t talk with Hamas
PM rejects militant group’s overtures.

Published Monday, December 24, 2007

JERUSALEM (AP) - Israel’s prime minister pledged yesterday to continue attacking Gaza militants, ruling out truce negotiations with Hamas amid widespread skepticism about the Islamic group’s ability to halt rocket attacks.

An Israeli cabinet minister, meanwhile, angered moderate Palestinians with another plan for new Jewish housing in a disputed part of Jerusalem, complicating renewed peace talks.

There have been almost daily reports of truce feelers from the embattled Islamic Hamas regime in Gaza, and Israeli defense officials have said they are examining the proposals.

But at the weekly cabinet meeting, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert rejected negotiations with Hamas because it has rebuffed international demands that it recognize Israel, renounce violence and endorse past peace accords.

"There is no other way to describe what is happening in the Gaza Strip except as a true war between the Israeli army and terrorist elements," Olmert told his cabinet, ruling out truce talks.

The truce feelers started surfacing last week after two days of Israeli airstrikes killed 12 people, including two top commanders of the militant Islamic Jihad group. The first came through a call from Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh to an Israeli TV reporter and later by way of Egypt, which has mediated several other past truces.

Hamas has offered to persuade fellow militants in Gaza to stop their daily rocket fire if Israel halts its air and ground operations in the coastal strip.

But Israel doubts whether Hamas has either the will or the ability to force the other militants to stop firing rockets.

Islamic Jihad is behind most of the rocket salvos, and yestersday the group again rejected a truce with Israel. By nightfall, four rockets fired from Gaza exploded in Israel, one damaging a factory near the southern city of Ashkelon, the military said.

"We have declared" this war, "and we will continue," Olmert said at the start of the cabinet meeting, which was open to the media. "This is true regarding Hamas, Islamic Jihad and all other elements."