Hamas Sheds Light on Its Military Wing

The Islamic Resistance Movement, or Hamas, on Saturday disclosed for the first time the command structure of its shadowy military wing, a move viewed as part of the group’s ongoing political challenge to the ruling Palestinian Authority.

Hamas, the largest and most powerful of the Palestinian militant groups, also unveiled previously undisclosed details of attacks against Israeli targets carried out by its military wing, Izzidin al-Qassam, and described the years-long process of acquiring its arsenal, which included rockets.

The information, posted on Hamas’ website and confirmed by spokesmen for the group, is the latest salvo in a public relations offensive aimed at claiming credit for Israel’s withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.

Hamas says its campaign of suicide bombings in Israeli cities, coupled with near-constant strikes against Israeli troops and Jewish settlers in Gaza, made it impossible for Israel to maintain a presence there. Israel says it decided on its own to relinquish Gaza because the densely populated territory, home to about 1.3 million Palestinians, had simply become too great a liability to the Jewish state, in both security and demographic terms.

The government of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon evacuated all 21 Jewish settlements in Gaza last month, together with four smaller ones in the northern West Bank, and Israeli troops are to leave the seaside enclave within the next few weeks. Most of their Gaza bases have already been dismantled.

When the Israelis are gone from Gaza, the power struggle between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority is expected to intensify. Gaza is considered Hamas’ home turf, and the group has a particularly strong base of support among impoverished Palestinians living in the territory’s slums and refugee camps.

Hamas has already defied Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas by repeatedly vowing to continue its armed campaign against Israel. However, the group has largely adhered to an informal cease-fire declared in February.

Abbas has resisted pressure from the United States and Israel to confront the Palestinian militant groups including Hamas and Islamic Jihad head-on, instead preferring to negotiate with them and seeking to co-opt them.

Hamas intends to field candidates for the first time in January’s parliamentary elections and has done well in municipal balloting this year.

“It’s very clear that they’re trying to score points for the elections,” said Ghassan Khatib, a minister in Abbas’ government. “Even though there has been a decline in their military activity lately, they want to remind everyone of what they did in the past.”

Most of the information posted by Hamas on its website, and also printed in a tabloid-style newspaper distributed Saturday in mosques and on the streets of Gaza, is likely already known to Israeli intelligence, said analyst Yoram Schweitzer, a terrorism expert at Tel Aviv University.

He added that the move reflected confidence on the part of Hamas’ leaders that Israel was no longer actively targeting them. Dozens of Hamas field operatives and political leaders, including the group’s spiritual mentor, Sheik Ahmed Yassin, were assassinated by Israel during the last five years of conflict.

Israel declared in February that it would cease its “targeted killings” of Palestinian militant figures, with the exception of those considered to be “ticking bombs,” meaning they were planning imminent attacks.

Of the seven Izzidin al-Qassam commanders identified on the website, the most senior is Mohammed Deif, who has survived several Israeli assassination attempts and spent years in hiding. Deif also appeared in a videotape released by Hamas on Aug. 27, in which he said the group would keep trying to destroy Israel.

In comments posted on the website, Deif was unusually frank in describing the group’s early attempts to manufacture homemade weapons, in the early 1990s, as a failure. But he said that returning Palestinian exiles provided technical know-how and helped develop smuggling pipelines, and that Hamas eventually acquired a sophisticated arsenal of grenades, missiles and rocket launchers.

Other commanders spoke of the abundance of volunteers for suicide bombing missions and described how recruits vied with one another to be chosen.

Abbas, who was not yet in power when Sharon decided on the Gaza withdrawal, maintains that all Palestinians will benefit by turning to negotiations and renouncing violence. He has said the intifada, or uprising, was a mistake.

“Inshallah [God willing], the people will now live in peace and security,” he told pupils at a Gaza City school Saturday, the first day of the academic year.

Abbas has said he is willing to meet with Sharon in the near future, and the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported in its online editions Saturday that the two leaders would hold talks this month.

Since Abbas took office in January the two have met twice: in February at a summit in Egypt, and again in June, weeks before the Israeli pullout began.

The last meeting was said to have been marked by sharp exchanges over Israeli settlement-building in the West Bank and Sharon’s demand that Abbas act decisively to rein in Palestinian militants.

Abbas also said Saturday that for the withdrawal from Gaza to be considered complete, Israel would have to move some of its heavily guarded crossing points, and parts of the fence surrounding Gaza, onto Israeli territory.

Times special correspondent Fayed abu Shammalah in Gaza City contributed to this report.