Hamas Military wing says will attack Israelis

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Hamas Military Wing Says Will Attack Israelis March 3, 2001 1:20 pm EST

GAZA (Reuters) - The military wing of the Palestinian group Hamas said on Saturday it was prepared to launch suicide bombing attacks on Israelis as soon as Prime Minister-elect Ariel Sharon takes power. In a statement faxed to Reuters in Gaza, the Izz el-Din al-Qassam Brigades said they were "surprised by the status of terror and dismay that accompanied the arrival of the butcher Sharon to power" and would attack when he takes office.

Sharon, loathed by Arabs for orchestrating Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon, overwhelmingly won a prime ministerial poll on February 6. He is racing to form a government that will include the left-center Labor Party by the end of the month.

"Up to the minute the statement was written, more than 10 potential martyrs were ready to strike the Zionist depths with their bodies and this will not take long," the Hamas statement said, referring to suicide bombers.

The militant group has taken responsibility for several past suicide bombings that killed or wounded scores of Israelis.

A Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation erupted last September after Sharon visited a site in Jerusalem's Old City that is holy to Muslims and Jews. At least 338 Palestinians, 62 Israelis and 13 Israeli Arabs have been killed.

"We will not remain in the status of self-defense for long. We will expand it to the status of attack...this puzzle will not take long. The world will see it on the first day the criminal Sharon takes power," the Hamas statement said.

The threat came two days after a Palestinian, who Israeli security officials said belonged to a militant group, detonated a bomb in a taxi in northern Israel, killing one Israeli and wounding at least 10 other people.

In the statement, Hamas called Secretary of State Colin Powell a "terrorist" for a U.S.-British air strike last month near the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, saying he "will know that the children of Israel will not feel safe at the expense of the children of Palestine and Iraq."

"The tears and farewell of martyrs will not be limited to the mothers of Palestine but it will be distributed to the mothers of soldiers and Zionist settlers," it added.

-- Anonymous, March 03, 2001


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