The Hamas movement ruling the Gaza Strip Friday welcomed
a call by the European parliament on Israel to lift
its tight blockade of the Strip as meanwhile the
Israeli military continued its operations there,
killing two freedom fighters.
But Israeli officials warned any such direct or indirect
expressions of support for Hamas would encourage radicals and
weaken moderate Palestinians seeking a peace deal with Israel.
Israel continued its military operations in Gaza,
killing two and wounding two others in an airstrike
near Maghazi refugee camp, Palestinian security officials said Friday.
They said the Palestinian men confronted an Israeli force
that entered central Gaza to carry out arrests.
An Israeli military spokesman confirmed the Israel Air Force
launched two parallel strikes in the area before dawn.
European lawmakers in Strasbourg voted by a show of hands
Thursday for the resolution, which said Gaza's civilian population
should be 'exempt from any military action and collective punishment.'
The policy of isolating the Strip had failed at both a political
and humanitarian level, said the parliament, which also called
for an 'immediate end to all violent acts in
Gaza and southern Israel.'
'We in Hamas appreciate the call by the European Union to
end the Israeli siege imposed on the Gaza Strip,' Hamas
spokesman Sami Abu Zuchri told the Palestinian Ma'an news agency.
Hamas is ready to study any initiative that will contribute
to 'stopping Israeli aggression against the Palestinian people,'
he added. Israel has thus far rejected Hamas' calls for a ceasefire,
saying it and other militant factions are 'welcome' to stop their
rocket attacks at any time, at which point Israel too
would stop its military actions.
In the West Bank, meanwhile, some 2,000 Palestinian,
foreign and Israeli activists participated in a demonstration
marking three years of struggle against Israel's controversial
West Bank barrier in the village of Bil'in, north-west
of Jerusalem.
Some eight activists were reported injured, including
an Arab- Israeli lawmaker from tear gas inhalation, and a
US activist was struck in the head by a rubber bullet.
Elsewhere in the West Bank, some 14 members of a group
of freedom fighters from the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades,
the armed wing of Abbas' Fatah movement, returned to a
Palestinian Authority (PA) prison in the northern city of
Nablus, a day after breaking out, Palestinian security officials said.
The al-Aqsa Freedom Fighters are being detained in the
Jneid prison as part of an agreement that was made with Israel,
under which they handed themselves over to the PA
for a three-month trial period.
If they do not resist Israel during the trial,
they will be taken off Israel's wanted list.
But the group, which is usually free to move during the day
but must spend the night at the prison, left the compound Thursday
to protest conditions there. The Israeli military had warned that
if the men did not return to the prison within 24 hours,
it would go after them and kill them.
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