| A Hamas official on Tuesday renewed calls for a ceasefire amid mounting Israeli demands for a broad military offensive in the Islamist-ruled Gaza Strip. Writing in the Israeli daily Haaretz, Ahmed Yussef, a Hamas foreign policy advisor, called for a long-term ceasefire between Palestinian militants and Israeli forces. “If the people of (the southern Israeli town of) Sderot want to know why rockets continue to land around them, they should ask their own government why it has continually rejected our calls for a ceasefire and continued its policy of daily incursions and reckless targeting that put the whole population at risk,” he wrote. Yussef pointed out that his Islamist movement observed a unilateral ceasefire for the nine months before it won parliamentary elections in January 2006 and for six months thereafter. Israel maintains that its attacks on Gaza are in response to the rocket and mortar attacks. It also points out that while Hamas itself may have refrained in the past from firing rockets, it did not stop other militant groups from doing so. |