Palestinian Chief Says Israel Seeks Regional Dominance

Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, in his most extensive public comments in more than two weeks, said the Israeli military offensives in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon were an attempt to establish regional dominance under the pretext of rescuing kidnapped soldiers, and he called for unity among the armed Palestinian factions.

“The aggression was there before the kidnapping of the soldiers,” he said in a speech before Friday prayers. “This aggression has been preplanned by the leaders of the occupation, ... unfortunately with the cooperation of the American administration.”

Haniyeh -- whose Hamas-led government has faced a U.S.-backed embargo on aid funding since it was elected four months ago -- said the military offensives were a final attempt to topple the elected Palestinian government.

“No government on this planet has endured such a siege,” he said.

Speaking in the packed and stifling Al Gharb Mosque in Gaza City’s Shati refugee camp, Haniyeh said the true reasons for the Israeli attacks were to break the wills of the Palestinian and Lebanese resistance movements, topple the Palestinian government and sow internal dissension among the Palestinian ranks.

He pledged to not make any political concessions to Israel. It remains unclear, however, whether he has the power to make concessions such as a deal to return Israeli Cpl. Gilad Shalit, missing since a June 25 cross-border raid.

Haniyeh also spoke at the Maghazi refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip after Israel pulled its tanks back from the camp to Israeli territory, ending a two-day incursion that left at least 15 Palestinians dead.

He addressed the thousands who gathered in the camp for a funeral for those killed during the incursion. The funeral turned into a political rally, with flags representing the Palestinian factions: green for Hamas, yellow for Fatah, black for Islamic Jihad and red for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

Those most recently killed included Hamas activist Mohamed Harara and three members of his family, who died Friday morning when a shell hit their home. The Harara family and 11 others were laid to rest in a sun-bleached cemetery on the camp’s outskirts.

“God knows if [the Israelis] will come again,” said Ghassan Salahat, a 25-year-old naval police officer. “If they do, the youth of the resistance will be there to meet them.”

Sporadic shelling continued in the northern Gaza Strip. The United Nations estimates the Gaza death toll at more than 100 in the last three weeks.