Hamas Vows More Attacks Like One in Hebron

The radical group Hamas has vowed to continue attacks like the one that killed 12 Israelis in the West Bank last week despite calls that Palestinian groups show restraint in the run-up to Israeli elections to give more moderate politicians a chance to win.

Mousa abu Marzouk, in an interview in the group’s office here over the weekend, claimed that Hamas planned the attack that took the lives of nine Israeli solders and border patrolmen and three armed guards from the Kiryat Arba Jewish settlement on the outskirts of the city of Hebron. It was one of the worst recent losses for Israeli forces. Sixteen Israelis were also wounded in a three-hour gun battle, and three Palestinian attackers were killed.

Rather than discouraging Jewish settlers in the overwhelmingly Arab city, the attack prompted a decision to dig in and establish a settlement to link Kiryat Arba and Hebron’s small Jewish settlement near the Cave of the Patriarchs, a site holy to Muslims and Jews as the traditional burying place of Abraham. On Monday, settlers claimed a key road between the two locations.

Marzouk asserted that the Hebron attack was a military operation aimed at soldiers and not directed at Jewish worshipers returning from Sabbath prayers, as reported originally by Israeli officials.

Another group, Islamic Jihad, had claimed responsibility for the attack, but Marzouk insisted that it was Hamas that monitored movements of soldiers outside the settlement for more than two weeks in planning the assault.

“They drew the Israelis into an ambush, and the gunfight erupted,” he said. Islamic Jihad gunmen joined in and three of them were killed, he said, while the two Hamas fighters involved escaped with one of them wounded, he said.

Islamic Jihad maintains a low profile at its offices here and will not talk to Western journalists.

Hamas, which operates an information office in a dense quarter of Damascus that is home to many Palestinian refugees, said attacks such as the one in Hebron would continue until Israeli forces and settlers left the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, East Jerusalem and all territories that came under Israeli control in the 1967 Middle East War.

A meeting in Cairo last week between Hamas and members of Yasser Arafat’s Palestinian Authority did not produce any agreement to halt Hamas suicide operations or ambushes, said Marzouk, who denied that the Palestinian Authority had made any such request.

Marzouk conceded that attacks like the one in Hebron would have the effect of strengthening the Likud Party and other right-wing forces in Israel by “a little percentage.” But he added, “When you talk about the Palestinian problem, there is not much difference between Labor and Likud.

“We will not suspend our operations during the election campaign, or after, or before,” he said. “We have only one condition: that Israel should leave our land and let us live freely like other peoples.”

Unlike the Palestinian Authority, Hamas does not recognize Israel’s right to exist on any part of its territory. But Marzouk said that fighting would stop if Israel returned to the territory it held before the 1967 war.

Since the current intifada began in the Palestinian territories more than two years ago, there have been many calls for Syria to shut down offices in Damascus of extremist Palestinian groups such as Hamas. On Monday, the United States urged Syria to close the Islamic Jihad office.

But Marzouk said Syria is unlikely to act because it agrees that Palestinians have the right to resist occupation. However, he said, the groups are barred from any kind of military activity on Syrian soil and must limit themselves to propaganda and information services.

An editorial Sunday in Beirut’s Daily Star newspaper urged Arabs to show their preference in the upcoming Israeli elections by sending signals of support for the likely Labor candidate, Amram Mitzna.

“What would help is a clear message from the Arab world that Israeli voters have much to gain by backing him,” it said.