The armed wing of the governing Palestinian movement Hamas, under huge international pressure to renounce violence, vowed on Sunday to avenge a weekend of Israeli strikes which has left 15 people dead. The latest victim was a 29-year-old taxi driver Yasser Abu Jarad who was killed by a tank shell at the entrance to a national security post in the Beit Hanun region of the northern Gaza Strip as he dropped off a member of a unit. Five other security men were also wounded in the attack which came as part of intensifying efforts by the army to put a halt to the firing of rockets from Gaza into southern Israel. A series of air strikes on Friday night and Saturday had also left 14 people wounded, making it much the deadliest bout of violence since Hamas's upset victory in a January parliamentary election and subsequent formation of its first government last month. The radical Islamist movement, regarded as a terrorist organisation by the West and Israel, has carried out the bulk of the suicide attacks against Israel since the Palestinian uprising erupted in September 2000. Although it has held off any such attacks for more than a year, Hamas has so far resisted international pressure to commit itself to non-violence and recognise Israel's right to exist.
Both the US and European Union announced over the weekend that they were either cutting or suspending direct aid payments to the already cash-strapped Palestinian Authority now that it is led by Hamas in the absence of a change of platform from the party. However the prospects of a u-turn by Hamas looked particularly dim Sunday after the movement's armed wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, issued a statement vowing to avenge the Israeli attacks. "These crimes against the Palestinians will not stop us following the path of resistance and jihad," the Brigades said in a statement received by AFP. "The Zionist enemy will pay a high price and will drink from the same cup from which our people drink day and night."
It was the first time in several months that the Brigades had issued such a statement and comes despite the fact that none of the victims of the weekend's violence were followers of the group.