Israeli leader squeezes Hamas

JERUSALEM -- Israel's leader yesterday declared that the Jewish state will cut all ties with the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority, brand it a ''hostile" power, and rule out negotiations with authority president Mahmoud Abbas as long as Hamas refuses to renounce violence and recognize Israel.

Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said that next week he would ask his Cabinet to approve the measures that his top security advisers recommended yesterday, capping a weekend of escalating tensions.

Israeli air and artillery strikes have killed at least 15 Palestinians since Friday as they targeted parts of the Gaza Strip, including some populated areas, that military officials said were used to launch rockets at Israel. The military said that rocket launches have increased in recent weeks from the territory that Israeli troops left last August, and that a longer-range Katyusha rocket was fired for the first time on March 26.

''Israel will not hold ties with the Palestinian Authority, which is a hostile authority," Olmert said in a statement.

He ruled out dealing with Abbas, a veteran of the Fatah party that lost to Hamas in January elections. Some Israeli politicians had favored talks with Abbas as a way to continue the peace process without dealing with Hamas, an Islamist group that vows to destroy Israel and embraces suicide bombings as a way to end Israeli occupation of lands captured in 1967.

''The Palestinian Authority is one authority and does not have two heads," Olmert said, but added that there would be no ''personal disavowal" of Abbas.

The hard-line Israeli policy was unveiled as Palestinian officials said they did not know when they would be able to meet payroll for more than 140,000 employees of the Palestinian Authority. The United States and European Union last week officially cut off tens of millions of dollars of aid, because they consider Hamas a terrorist organization.

Shortly after the Hamas victory, Israel stopped transferring about $55 million in tax revenues that it collects each month on behalf of the Palestinian Authority, sparking a financial crisis. Israel has also suspended most of its dealings with Palestinian officials.

But the new steps Olmert's Cabinet is expected to approve next Sunday would codify a tough Israeli stance on Hamas as Olmert tries to form a new coalition government dedicated to setting Israel's final borders within the next four years.

Olmert led the newly founded Kadima Party to victory in Israeli elections last month on a platform that promised to pull out of most of the West Bank while keeping large Jewish settlement blocks. He vowed to act even in the absence of talks with the Palestinians, an approach that Kadima calls pragmatic but that Palestinians fear heralds a new era of unilateral moves.

But with only 29 seats in the 120-member Knesset, Kadima must join with at least three other parties to form a ruling coalition -- and its largest potential partner, left-leaning Labor, has raised objections to the unilateral approach.

Kadima has been courting a party to its right, Yisrael Beitenu, led by ultranationalist Moldovan immigrant Avigdor Lieberman.

The new recommendations would emphasize that Kadima is willing to be tough on Hamas as the Cabinet prepares to officially end the tenure of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, the leader Israelis widely viewed as a guarantor of security.

Sharon, who has been in a coma since suffering a stroke in January, is expected tomorrow to be declared permanently incapacitated by the Cabinet. Olmert, who stepped in as acting prime minister after Sharon's stroke, is expected to be named his permanent replacement as he puts together his new government.

The new Israeli policy aimed to further isolate the Hamas government, declaring that Israel will ''act to prevent the administrative establishment of a Hamas government" and that foreign envoys who meet with Hamas officials ''will not be received for meetings with Israeli officials."

The policy sidelines Abbas, stating that Israel will coordinate humanitarian assistance for the West Bank and Gaza Strip with ''the international community," not ''the Palestinian Authority establishment."