Hamas threatens response to Israeli strikes

Cairo - Palestinian militant groups on Thursday said they plan to respond in kind to recent Israeli military strikes within the Gaza Strip. "These strikes represent an escalating offensive of the Zionists that targets the Palestinian people. This reflects that the enemy has no interest in peace in the region," Fawzi Barhoum, Hamas spokesman in the Gaza Strip, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

"The military branch of Hamas has a right to respond to the strikes. The leaders of our military branch are devising that response now," Barhoum said.

The Israeli Air Force on Thursday injured eight Palestinians in a rocket attack on a motorcyclist. The Israeli military said the target took part in a bombing that killed an Israeli soldier near the Gaza border on Tuesday. It was the fifth Israeli airstrike on Gaza since Israel declared a ceasefire 12 days ago.

Barhoum said Hamas was calling "independent Palestinian figures" to form a new coalition because "the Palestinian Liberation Organization does not represent the Palestinian people." He did not elaborate on which figures Hamas had been calling.

Daoud Shehab, a Damascus-based spokesman for the Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad, echoed Barhoum's position.

"Israel is striking at Egyptian efforts to establish a peace," Shehab told dpa. "The resistance has the right to respond to this offensive against its people."

Shehab set February 5 as the date Islamic Jihad would give its reply to Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman's proposals for reconciling Palestinian factions.

"We deal with Fatah openly and without any restrictions," Shehab said, "But we have some reservations about (Palestinian President) Mahmoud Abbas. Before a reconciliation can be achieved, he must cut all his relations with Israel, release all our prisoners in the West Bank, and accept our right to resist."

"We do not want to reconcile with an authority that is controlled by Israel," Shehab told dpa.