Abbas blames Hamas for Gaza bloodshed
December 29, 2008 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.”
Hamas officials have admitted that they were caught by surprise by the massive Israeli air raids in the Gaza Strip and accused the Palestinian Authority and Egypt of “collusion” with Israel.
A Hamas official told The Jerusalem Post that the reason why security installations in the Gaza Strip had not been evacuated before the attack was because the Egyptians had assured his movement that there would be no Israeli attack in the coming days.
“Only hours before the attack, the Egyptians told our representatives that they were under the impression that Israel would not launch an operation,” the Hamas official said. “We believe the Egyptians deliberately deceived us because they had given Israel a green light to attack.”
Another Hamas official told the Post that Abbas and his top aides had long been urging Israel to bring down the Hamas govt so that they could return to the Gaza Strip. A Hamas minister later said that the spokesman was referring to Egypt and the Palestinian Authority.
Nunu told reporters in Gaza City that Hamas would not “raise a white flag” and would not make any political concessions as a result of the Israeli aggression.
He also stressed that Hamas would not accept the conditions set by the Quartet for dealing with his government - first and foremost that it recognize Israel and renounce terrorism.
Mussa Abu Marzouk, a senior Hamas official based in Damascus, claimed that some Arab parties had pushed Israel to launch the attack, adding that the attack was designed to force the Palestinians to succumb and make political concessions. “The Israeli enemy won’t succeed in achieving its goal,” he said.