Hamas refashions its militancy

The Palestinian group has not claimed responsibility for a rocket attack on Israel since taking over Gaza in June.

By Joshua Mitnick | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

from the August 22, 2007 edition

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Tel Aviv - There was a time when the killing of six Hamas gunmen, which Israel said it did Monday in an airstrike on the Gaza Strip, would have propelled the Islamic militants to unleash a barrage of rockets into southern Israel.

But despite angry vows of revenge, Hamas continued to uphold Tuesday an undeclared policy, established after its takeover of Gaza in June, of limiting rocket attacks on Israel.

At a time when Hamas is trying to consolidate power and show the world it can rule responsibly since bringing to a violent end the unity government with rival Fatah, it is being careful to keep its fight against what it calls "the Zionist enemy" on a low flame of rhetoric and lower-impact mortar fire.

"If we analyze Hamas's resistance in the Gaza Strip, we could say it was not for the sake of resistance of the [Israeli] occupation in the Gaza Strip, it was for political goals," says Saud Abu Ramadan, a Gaza-based journalist and political observer.

"They say in their official statements that they sing songs of resistance, but they have been acting otherwise. The political meaning of firing a short-range mortar shell at a border crossing is nothing because the world is not going to talk about it," he says.

Three more Palestinians, members of the militant group Islamic Jihad, were killed in southern Gaza Tuesday by Israeli aircraft, according to Israel's army, which said the men were seen operating near an Israeli border fence. The army said it killed the six members of Hamas only after the men were seen firing rockets into Israel.

In the past two months, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) counted 110 rocket attacks and 170 mortar attacks into Israel. Even if most of the attacks are being carried out by militant groups other than Hamas, such as Islamic Jihad, Israel's army says it will hold Hamas responsible.

Though many observers argue that Hamas's political agenda dictates different behavior from its days as underground opposition to the Palestinian Authority (PA), Israel's army continues to see Hamas as a group driven by an extremist agenda. Still, a military spokesperson acknowledged that Hamas has recently resisted the kind of sustained barrages on Israeli cities that provoked escalations in the past.

"It's a matter of interests. The interest of Hamas now is to show the world stability inside Gaza. But the stability is only visible on the outside," says Maj. Avital Leibovich. "Take Gaza as a metaphor for something that is [being] wrapped up. When you take off the wrapping, you see something different."

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