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| Hamas makes Islamic Jihad vow not to fire rockets at Israel |
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Syria urges Palestinian coordination in peace process
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
RAMALLAH, West Bank/DUBAI: Security forces of the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas in Gaza detained several Islamic Jihad activists and made them sign an agreement not to fire rockets at Israel, a Jihad leader said on Monday.
“At least 10 activists from the Al-Quds Brigades were arrested by the Hamas interior security,” he said in reference to the armed wing of the Islamic Jihad. “They were interrogated about the identities of those who fire rockets,” he told AFP by telephone under condition of anonymity.
“Before they were released they had to sign an agreement not to fire rockets at the occupied territory,” he said in reference to Israel whose existence both Hamas and its smaller Islamist rivals in Jihad oppose. A Hamas police spokesman in Gaza City, Islam Shahwan, declined to comment on the report.
Hamas, which seized control of the Gaza Strip in June 2007, is involved in Egyptian-mediated negotiations with Israel to try to consolidate a January 18 truce which ended a 22-day Israeli military offensive in Gaza.
The stated aim of the offensive, which killed more than 1,300 Palestinians, was to significantly reduce the number of rockets fired at southern Israel, many of them by Islamic Jihad.
Meanwhile, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad urged the Palestinians to coordinate with Damascus in their peace negotiations with Israel, in comments published on Monday.
“We believe that once Israel has signed a peace deal with Syria, it will simply eliminate the Palestinian question sooner or later,” Assad told the United Arab Emirates daily Al-Khaleej.
“Therefore, it is in the interest of the Palestinian negotiators to coordinate with Syria. Otherwise, we cannot help them.”
Syria held exploratory contacts with Israel through Turkish mediators last year about resuming US-brokered peace negotiations that broke off in 2000.
Syria suspended the contacts during Israel’s deadly three-week genocidal offensive against the Gaza Strip at the turn of the year but has expressed readiness to resume them once a new Israeli government has been formed after last month’s general election.
“We’ve been offering (the Israelis) a choice between a comprehensive peace agreement and a peace accord that has no value,” Assad said.
“They say they want a comprehensive peace and, if that’s so, then the Palestinian track will benefit from the Syrian track.”
Assad said that any separate deal between Israel and Syria without a settlement of the Palestinian question would not lead to a full normalisation of relations.
“It will be a signed piece of paper, which will not mean trade, and will not mean normalisation and (open) borders,” he said.
“Our people would never accept such a thing as long as there are still half a million Palestinians in our country whose fate remains unresolved.”
Syria has had sometimes uneasy relations with Western-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who relaunched the Palestinians’ own peace negotiations with Israel in November 2007.
It provides backing to a number of Palestinian factions opposed to Abbas, notably the Islamist Hamas movement that has controlled Gaza since ousting his loyalists in June 2007. But it has expressed support for reconciliation talks between the Palestinian factions that are due to resume in Cairo on Tuesday.
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ISSN 1563-9479 
