Hamas ends truce with "Israel"

Source: Alalam, 24-4-2007
GAZA CITY -The armed wing of the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas on Tuesday said a five-month truce with the "Israeli" occupation army "no longer exists".
The announcement by the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades came after the group said it had fired nearly 30 rockets and 61 mortars into Occupied Palestine.
It marked the first time that Hamas claimed responsibility for launching rockets into Occupied Palestine since a November 26 truce took effect between the Zionist army and Gaza fighters.
A spokesman for the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, Abu Obaida, said the truce no longer exists, adding "it`s the `Israeli` enemy that has not respected it and now it`s the turn of Palestinian groups".
Abu Obaida said the firing of Tuesday`s projectiles was a response to the martyrdom of nine Palestinians by Zionist troops over the weekend in the occupied West Bank and Gaza.
The deaths marked the bloodiest weekend of the "Israeli" violence since the November truce and sparked calls for retaliation on the part of Palestinian resistance groups.
Under the terms of the November ceasefire, the "Israeli" occupation army withdrew troops from the Gaza Strip and fighters there agreed to halt rocket fire into Occupied Palestine.
The truce has largely held despite the Zionist regime`s repeated deadly incursions into the Palestinian territories, drawing retaliatory firing of home-made missiles by resistance fighters.
On Monday, the "Israeli" occupation army dropped fliers in northern Gaza Strip threatening an incursion unless rocket fire stops within 48 hours.
The Zionist regime`s helicopters dropped the fliers, written in Arabic, in the north of the coastal strip.
On Saturday, the occupation army martyred a Palestinian in an air raid in Gaza after a rocket fired from the territory lightly wounded two Zionists in the southern town of Sderot.
Another eight Palestinians, including two teenagers, were martyred by troops in the occupied West Bank on Saturday and Sunday.