The founder of Hamas said Monday it would consider halting suicide attacks on Israelis if Israel withdrew from West Bank cities and took other measures.
"Basically what I would say to the occupation army is to leave ... the Palestinian cities in all the West Bank that were occupied ...," Hamas spiritual leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin told reporters in the Gaza Strip.
"And stop your aggression, demolishing homes. Release prisoners and stop assassinations. Once the occupation and all those measures against our people stop, we are ready to totally study stopping martyrdom operations, in a positive way."
Yassin did not clarify whether any reconsidered position on attacks would apply both to Israel and to Israeli soldiers and Jewish settlers in the West Bank and Gaza, or be limited geographically.
"Leave its occupation of us, leave our people," Yassin said, when asked what Israel had to do for Hamas to halt attacks. "Leave our villages and lands."
Commenting on these remarks, Sheikh Hamad Bitawi, a Hamas leader in Nablus, said he could, in theory, support the call made by Yassin to stop killing civilians. However, "as long as Israel kills thousands of Palestinian women and children, we have to use the principle of reciprocity," Bitawi said.
Bitawi also asserted that Israeli women cannot be considered non-combatants since they were all once soldiers, and thus are legitimate targets. He slammed any notion cooperating with what he called the "horribly corrupt" Palestinian Authority.
Meanwhile, Palestinian police arrested the head of the PA's customs and tax department on charges of corruption, Palestinian security officials said.
Nasser Tahbub was detained in the West Bank town of Ramallah as part of the PA's promised crackdown on corruption. Tahbub was detained in his office under Yasser Arafat's.
Elsewhere, Israeli troops were seen Monday leaving five tall buildings they had taken over as observation points in the reoccupied city of Nablus in the northern West Bank, witnesses said. Israeli tanks were also seen on the move, although their destination was not known, the witnesses said. However, Israeli military sources said the forces were replaced by fresh units and did not leave the city. (Albawaba.com)
© 2002 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
