Abbas blames Hamas for Gaza bloodshed

CAIRO (Agencies) - Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has blamed Hamas for triggering Israel’s deadly raids on Gaza, by not extending a six-month truce with the Jewish state.
He also blamed Hamas, which controls the coastal Gaza Strip territory, for disrupting national unity talks that could have paved the way for general and presidential elections.
Egypt is trying to broker a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas to be followed by a truce, Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit said following talks with Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas.
Abbas was in Cairo to discuss Egyptian and Arab League efforts to end the violence in Gaza.
“We have warned of this grave danger,” he said in Cairo, Egypt, on Sunday.
However, Fawzi Barhoum, a Hamas spokesman, said he was “surprised” by Abbas’ claim.
“He downplayed the sufferings of our people in Gaza and belittled their pains, providing justification of the holocaust and war waged by Israel,” he said.
Abbas said maintaining the truce could have helped the Palestinians avoid the raids. Speaking after talks with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, Abbas said the priority now was to end the bloodshed and restore the truce between Gaza and Israel.
Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit said Cairo summoned the Israeli Ambassador to the Foreign Ministry on Sunday for the second day in a row to complain about Israeli military operations.
Gheit said that a meeting of Arab League foreign ministers set to be held in Cairo on Wednesday should agree on a plan to deal with the crisis that would include seeking a ceasefire and trying to renew a Hamas-Israel truce. The ministers “must decide how to reach a ceasefire between the two parties as a prelude to an agreement on the truce which will lead to an opening of crossing points between Israel and Gaza.”