GAZA CITY: Thirteen armed Palestinian groups, including the militant Islamist movement Hamas, say they have set up a centre to co-ordinate operations against Israel.
The threat, together with violence this week, raised tensions in Israel and the Palestinian territories even as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas agreed in Washington to continue direct peace talks.
“We have decided to create a co-ordination centre for our operations against the (Israeli) enemy,” said Abu Obeida, spokesman for the Ezzedine al-Qassam brigades, Hamas’s military wing, speaking on behalf of the 13 groups.
He pledged to hit “the Zionist enemy in any place at any time”, adding that “all options are open” in response to a question on the possibility of firing rockets at Tel Aviv from Gaza.
Four Israelis have been shot dead and two others wounded since Tuesday in a pair of Palestinian attacks targeting Jewish settlements in the West Bank. Both shootings were claimed by Hamas, which opposes the peace talks.
But Israeli and Palestinian officials and analysts familiar with Hamas said the attacks’ true target appeared to be the Palestinian Authority, the more moderate Palestinian government of the West Bank, which is headed by Mr Abbas.
Mr Abbas has spearheaded a tough crackdown on Hamas for the past two years, shuttering Hamas-linked charities, arresting thousands of Hamas members and banning its peaceful political activities in the West Bank.
This week’s shootings follow a period of relative quiet, during which Hamas appeared to have retrenched from violent acts against Israel.
The group claimed responsibility for the fatal shooting of an Israeli policeman in the southern West Bank in June.
In the weeks leading up to the peace talks, Palestinian forces intensified its crackdown on Hamas. Palestinian security forces banned Hamas-linked preachers from speaking in mosques.
Mahmoud Ramahi, a Hamas politician based in the West Bank, said this week’s attacks were probably calculated to cause a rift between Palestinian Authority security forces and Israeli forces and show Hamas is still a vibrant force that cannot be ignored.
“This proves that the only way to deal with Hamas is for the Palestinian Authority to . . . make a reconciliation deal to build a common strategy.
“Hamas is a reality,” he said. “The US and the Palestinian Authority have to sit and talk with it.”
Hamas’s political leaders, such as Mr Ramahi, say they are not privy to discussions within the group’s military wing. That apparent division underscores the diffuse power structure the group cultivates.
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