Israel severs ties and escalates attacks

Israel stepped up pressure on the Hamas-led Palestinian government on Apr. 9, severing all direct contacts with what it called a "hostile entity" and firing shells into Gaza to combat rocket attacks by militants. The militants, however, are not affiliated with the Palestinian government. "Israel will have no contact with the Palestinian Authority, which is a hostile entity, and will work toward preventing any entrenchment of the Hamas government's rule," said the Israeli statement, issued after a cabinet meeting. The statement appeared to make formal the position that Israel had taken since the victory by Hamas in the Palestinian parliamentary elections in January. But it did not rule out "personal" contacts with the Palestinian leader, Mahmoud Abbas, whose Fatah faction was crushed by Hamas in the elections. The statement added, however, that Israel regarded the Palestinian Authority, which Abbas presides over, as a single entity, making it clear that opening a separate peacemaking channel with him, bypassing Hamas, was not an option. Simultaneously, Israel has escalated its air and artillery offensive on alleged Palestinian launch sites, training camps and command centers in the Gaza Strip. A Palestinian policeman was killed on Apr. 9 when a shell hit his car as he was evacuating colleagues from a post in the border town of Beit Hanoun. He brought the number of dead to 15 since Apr. 7. They included the three-year-old son of Iyad Abu Alinin, alleged to have built many Qassam rockets, who was killed with four comrades while driving away from a training base in Rafah. The Israeli army said it had fired more than 750 shells into Gaza over the weekend. On the West Bank, troops shot dead a wanted gunman near Bethlehem and arrested a youth trying to smuggle three explosive devices through a checkpoint. In Gaza, Islamic Jihad vowed to escalate its counter-attacks "by all possible means." Abu Abdullah, a spokesman for the group, which was responsible for many of the 40 rockets launched into Israel last week, said: "There will be no truce with the occupation while there is open war." Israeli aircraft fired three missiles at an abandoned police base in Abbas' compound on Apr. 4, the first time Israel had attacked a security installation since Hamas took over the Palestinian government. Israeli tanks also targeted the northern Gaza Strip, killing one Palestinian and wounding seven, including a mother and her six-month-old baby, Palestinian officials said. It was not immediately clear why Abbas' compound was targeted. Abbas denounced the airstrike and called for international intervention to stop what he called Israel's "destruction for the sake of destruction." "The continuous random bombarding in Gaza is not justified. It wants nothing but to disrupt daily life of Palestinian people," he said. The airstrike targeted Ansar 2, a security compound about 100 yards from Abbas' office in Gaza City. The attack wounded two people and left deep craters. The Hamas-controlled Interior Ministry, which oversees some of the Palestinian security forces, condemned the Israeli "aggression" and threatened to retaliate. Ansar 2, formerly used by Palestinian security forces to store equipment, has been abandoned due to previous Israeli attacks. During five years of fighting, Israel repeatedly attacked the site, most recently in 2004. Alongside the latest military offensive, Israel's inner security cabinet decided to continue freezing the payment of tax revenues to the Palestinian Authority, which admitted that it was unable to pay the wages of 140,000 public employees. Israel's Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert also announced that his government would boycott foreign diplomats who meet with members of the Palestinian government. "Foreign visitors who meet with Hamas officials will not be authorized to meet Israeli officials," Olmert said. The Palestinian planning minister, Samir Abu Eisha, said Israel's decision would affect the Palestinian government's ability to provide health and education services in the West Bank, where coordination with Israeli authorities is often necessary. Compounding these difficulties, the United States and European Union announced only days before that it will suspend all direct aid to the Palestinian Authority while increasing humanitarian assistance to aid agencies serving Palestinians. In addition, the US State Department said that Washington will provide $42 million in assistance that "protects and promotes moderation and democratic alternatives to Hamas." Hamas, which came to power in what many observers characterized as the Arab world's freest and fairest elections ever, is considered almost certain to blame any deterioration in the territories on the aid embargo, possibly triggering a backlash against the West and those Palestinian parties that it supports against Hamas. A Hamas member of parliament condemned the embargo, accusing the EU of "collective punishment" of the Palestinian people. Ghazi Hamad, a government spokesman, told reporters: "We will not accept such a blackmail. Hamas was elected democratically and the Palestinian people are punished for their choice. "The EU will not only punish the government but all the Palestinian people–the poor, the students, the workers. "It is unjust because, first of all, it's Israel that should be punished, Israel continues its aggression." Hamas has recently been trying to present a more conciliatory face to the international community. Speaking to the British newspaper The Times on Apr. 6, Mahmoud al-Zahar, the Palestinian Foreign Minister, repeatedly refused to rule out the possibility of Hamas accepting a two state solution and even raised the prospect of his Hamas-led government putting the issue to the Palestinian people in a referendum.