Hamas Denies It Is a Terrorist Group

The militant Palestinian group Hamas on Tuesday condemned a U.S. plan to label it officially as a terrorist group, saying it is ready to sit down with the West and explain its aims.

The group, at the center of the crisis over Israel’s expulsion of more than 400 Palestinians, said that it does not seek to shed innocent blood and that its recent attacks had all been against military targets in the Israeli-occupied territories.

“We are not a terrorist group,” Mohammed Nazzal, the Hamas representative in Jordan, said. “There is no justification to include Hamas among organizations sponsoring terrorism. We are an Islamic national liberation group, and all international covenants allow us to use legitimate methods to fight the occupation.”

The State Department said Monday that Hamas is committing terrorist acts and will be named in its next terrorism report.

A State Department official said the report will say Hamas “increasingly uses lethal tactics such as firearms and car bombs and that it was responsible for a large number of attacks against Israeli civilian and military targets.”