Hamas backtracks on missile apology
Hamas distances itself from earlier statement of regret over Israeli casualties in Gaza war
The Hamas government in Gaza has distanced itself from an earlier statement in which it expressed regret for harming Israeli civilians in rocket attacks.
The apology was part of the government's response to a UN report that alleged both Hamas and Israel committed war crimes during Israel's Gaza offensive last winter. The UN report accused Hamas of firing rockets indiscriminately at Israeli civilians.
The Hamas government wrote to the U.N. that "we apologize for any harm that might have come to Israeli civilians." However, the government also said it has the right to resist Israeli occupation.
On Saturday, Hamas reaffirmed that right but said "the report it submitted does not include any apologies in this regard." It offered no explanation for the contradiction.
Earlier, Hamas has expressed regret for the deaths of Israeli civilians in Palestinian rocket attacks during fighting in Gaza a year ago.
Israel, where Hamas suicide bombers have killed hundreds of civilians over two decades, dismissed any apology for the three non-combatants hit by rockets from Gaza in the war as insincere.
In a report by a committee set up by Hamas to examine UN allegations of war crimes by its fighters, the authors said: "We regret any harm that may have befallen any Israeli civilian.
"We hope the Israeli civilians understand that their government's continued attacks on us were the key issue and the cause," added the report, of which Reuters obtained a copy.
In response to the report, delivered to the United Nations this week, Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said on Friday: "For years Hamas has boasted about deliberately targeting civilians, either through suicide bombings, by gunfire or by rockets. Who are they trying to fool now?"
At least one senior Hamas official, who declined to be named, said the movement remained ready to conduct "martyrdom operations" - suicide bombings of Israeli buses, cafes and the like, which have not, however, been seen for several years.
The Hamas report, after listing Palestinian grievances such as the Israeli embargo on Gaza, reaffirmed comments by officials of the 22-year-old Islamist movement that its improvised rockets were fired purely defensively and were aimed at Israeli military targets. They simply lacked the necessary accuracy, Hamas said.
"It should be noted that the Palestinian resistance ... is not an organized army that possesses developed technological weapons," the report said. "It may target a military site or a tank position and their fire goes astray ... and hit a civilian location, despite their efforts to avoid hurting civilians."
'No change in the movement's policy'
Israel and independent rights groups say Hamas has broken the laws of war by indiscriminately firing thousands of rockets and mortars around Israeli towns, notably Sderot, close to the Gaza border, in the years since the group won a parliamentary election in 2006 and seized full control in Gaza in 2007.
Some 1,400 Palestinians, including hundreds of civilians, were killed in a three-week Israeli offensive launched on December 27, 2008. Israel and the Palestinians were urged by UN investigator Richard Goldstone in September to conduct credible inquiries into possible war crimes committed by their forces.
Both sides presented documents to the United Nations in recent days which they say showed they had conducted suitable investigations. In a message on Thursday to the General Assembly, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon withheld judgment on whether either party had met Goldstone's recommendations.
UN member states "will consult on the further course of action," General Assembly spokesman Jean Victor Nkolo said.
Rights group Amnesty International called Ban's message "deeply disappointing."
"Amnesty International believes that the information (Ban) had received was sufficient to show clearly that the steps taken by both sides have been completely inadequate," it said in a statement.
Israel, which has furiously rejected Goldstone's report as unbalanced, says Hamas deliberately puts Palestinian civilians in harm's way in order to shield its fighters and to exploit international pressure on Israel over civilian deaths.
Diaa al-Madhoun, a Palestinian judge who took part in drafting the report to the United Nations, told Reuters that the expression of regret conformed to what he said was Hamas' "commitment to international humanitarian law."
"It is part of our religion not to target civilians, women, children and the elderly, who do not take part in the aggression against us," he said, echoing language in the Hamas report.
Over 500 Israelis were killed in suicide bombings during a Palestinian uprising from 2000. Many of those bombers were sent by Hamas, pursuing what it calls "martyrdom operations."
Asked whether the expression of regret to the United Nations marked a change in that strategy, a Hamas official in Gaza told Reuters: "There is no change in the movement's policy, and that includes our position on the martyrdom operations."
