Hamas: Israel targeting government

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip -- Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh accused Israel yesterday of trying to topple the Hamas-led government, declaring that the Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip and the arrests of more than two dozen Hamas officials was designed to undo the militant group's election victory in January.

Israel sent troops into Gaza early Wednesday, three days after Hamas-linked gunmen captured 19-year-old Corporal Gilad Shalit in a cross-border raid that killed two Israeli soldiers. Israeli officials said their mission was to rescue Shalit and deal a blow to militants who fire homemade rockets almost daily from Gaza into Israel.

Haniyeh said he saw another goal. ``Their aim is to bring down the government," he said at Friday prayers, addressing thousands of worshipers at a Gaza City mosque in his first public appearance since the Israeli offensive began. ``What is happening is the continuation of an open war against the will of the people."

Privately, though, Haniyeh is pushing for a quick resolution to the crisis because he realizes that his government's survival is at stake, according to a Palestinian official with detailed knowledge of ongoing talks among Palestinian factions.

Haniyeh and some members of his government favor a proposal from Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to hand over Shalit if Israel ends the offensive, stops targeted killings of militants in Gaza, and promises to discuss the release of Palestinian prisoners before the end of the year, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the political sensitivity of the talks. But he said the Hamas militants holding Shalit, along with other hard-liners, insist on a direct prisoner exchange.

Early today, the militants issued new demands, calling on Israel to halt its offensive and release 1,000 prisoners. Previously, they had demanded the release of more than 100 female Palestinian prisoners and all detainees under the age of 18 in exchange for information about Shalit. The new statement did not promise to release the soldier.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has publicly rejected the idea of a prisoner exchange. ``So, we are almost at a standstill," said the Palestinian official, who is not a Hamas member.

He said Egyptian negotiators, with direct involvement from Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, are trying to persuade Hamas hard-liners to reduce their demands. Egyptian officials are refusing to meet with Hamas's hard-line leader Khaled Mashal, who was scheduled to travel yesterday from Damascus, where he lives in exile, to Cairo.

Haniyeh said during Friday prayers that he was working with Arab, Muslim, and European mediators to resolve the crisis `` in the right way."

Israeli forces seized a patch of territory in southern Gaza on Wednesday for the first time since they withdrew last summer from Gaza, which Israel had occupied since the 1967 Middle East war. Israeli air strikes this week have knocked out Gaza's only power plant, cutting off power to half of the strip's 1.3 million people, destroyed three bridges, and hit the office of the Hamas interior minister and several militant training camps.

Thursday night, an air strike killed an Islamic Jihad militant, in the first death of the campaign. Israel has also been shelling areas of northern and southern Gaza to deny militants the use of open areas to fire rockets, the military said.

But an expected larger ground invasion has so far not materialized. Israeli officials have refused to comment on the negotiations, but security sources told Israel Radio that Israeli officials were in contact with Egyptian mediators. Israel's defense minister, Amir Peretz, said Israel was prepared to use diplomacy and military action in a process that could take weeks.

The Israeli public appears to be more open than its government to a prisoner exchange, according to a poll published yesterday in Yedioth Aharonoth, Israel's largest daily newspaper. Fifty-three percent said they favor negotiating for a soldier's release, and 69 percent said Palestinian prisoners should be released if the Israeli soldier would otherwise be executed.

At the Mahatta mosque in Gaza City, worshipers chanted their support for Hamas and Haniyeh. ``Olmert can cut off the electricity, he can cut off the water, but he will not defeat us," said Najwa al-Kafarna, a young mother of four.

Haniyeh told the crowd: ``People may change, ministers may change, but the government for the next four years will be based on the results of the elections."

In another move against Hamas officials, Israel's interior minister, Roni Baron, told Israel Radio yesterday that he had revoked the Jerusalem residency permits of four of the arrested Hamas officials, Jerusalem Affairs Minister Khaled Abu Arfa and three parliament members. They had been put on notice to resign from Hamas or lose their Jerusalem residency, which allows them to travel anywhere in Israel and receive national health insurance, unlike residents of the occupied West Bank.

The crisis has pitted Haniyeh and other Hamas figures such as Khalil al-Haya, against hard-liners, the Palestinian official said, adding that Haniyeh knows a violent end to the crisis means ``the evaporation of the dream of government."

He said that if no agreement is reached, there are two possible scenarios: If Israel is able to retrieve Shalit in a lightning operation, it will probably carry out a short military campaign in Gaza aimed at stopping rocket fire. But if Shalit ends up dead, he said, ``there will be a wider and longer military campaign against Gaza."