GAZA: Palestinian lawmakers will urge militants in Gaza to consider halting rocket fire into Israel because its harsh retaliation is hurting ordinary Palestinians, officials said yesterday.
At least 10 Palestinians have been killed since Israeli troops thrust into the farm-rich Beit Hanoun area on June 28th after militants fired rockets over the border, killing two Israelis in the town of Sderot.
The Palestinian parliament formed a nine-member committee this week to hold talks with militant faction leaders and Palestinian Authority officials, panel member Imad al-Falouji said.
"We will urge factions to consider halting the rocket fire since it is being used by Israel as a pretext to wreak huge destruction with a big impact on civilians in areas like Beit Hanoun," he said.
"We will discuss with them the security deterioration in the region . . . which \ the wisdom of using this method of resistance to occupation although we retain full commitment to resist it [in other ways\] until it is removed."
Violence has increased in Gaza in the run-up to Israeli Prime Minister Mr Ariel Sharon's planned withdrawal of settlers and soldiers from the territory by the end of next year.
Militants want to prove they chased out the Israelis while Mr Sharon aims to prevent that by battering them into quiescence.
Israeli tanks and armoured bulldozers charged into the Beit Hanoun area last week in what the army called an open-ended operation to flush out Islamist rocket squads and deprive them of cover by razing trees and other foliage, some of it agricultural.
Previous raids have flattened wide swathes of farmland.
The latest incursion has led to several bouts of fighting, which escalated yesterday when Israeli troops shot dead seven Palestinians including two civilians, witnesses said.
Mr Falouji said lawmakers would urge President Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority, which seeks statehood in Gaza and West Bank territory Israel occupied in a 1967 war, to do more to restore law and order with increased international help.
But Palestinian security services, accused by Israel of involvement in militancy, have been widely crippled by army offensives and internal feuding.
Leaders of the increasingly powerful Islamist factions vowed no respite in the rocket attacks.
"As long as the \ aggression continues, resistance including the firing of rockets will continue," said Sami Abu Zuhri, the Hamas spokesman in Gaza.
He noted statements by Israeli officials that the army could remain deployed in Beit Hanoun until Jewish settlers leave Gaza.
The Israeli army said 12 more rockets had been launched across the border since it went into Beit Hanoun. - (Reuters)
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