Author(s): Associated Press
Source: Yahoo News!. Article date: September 5th, 2014
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — A senior leader of Hamas on Friday rejected Israel's demand that the group be disarmed as a condition for ending the long-running blockade of the Gaza Strip and permitting the opening of an air and seaport there.
Ismail Haniyeh told a gathering near Gaza City that “we cannot accept or deal with any international decision to disarm the resistance” — a reference to Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups.
Israel has said it will press for Hamas' disarmament in indirect talks in Cairo aimed at charting a way forward for Gaza in the wake of a 50-day war that killed more than 2,200 people — almost all Palestinian. The fighting ended Aug. 26.
Hamas is pushing for the opening of an air and sea port in the densely populated coastal strip and the lifting of Israeli border restrictions imposed in 2007.
Israel has long said it must restrict the import of cement, pipes and other construction materials into Gaza because militants use them to build rockets, bunkers and cross-border attack tunnels. Unlike the Western-backed Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, Hamas does not accept Israel's right to exist. [Neither organization accepts Israel - see PLO charter. Israel has always strongly objected to the Charter, which describes the establishment of the state of Israel as "entirely illegal" (Art. 19), considers Palestine, with its original Mandate borders, as the indivisible homeland of the Arab Palestinian people (1-2), urges the elimination of Zionism in Palestine and worldwide (Art. 15), and strongly urges the "liberation" of Palestine throughout by ethnic cleansing of Jewish presence. (Source: Wikipedia)]
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