Sheikh Yassin and Netanya explosion

The leader of the Palestinian Hamas resistance movement, Sheikh Ahmad Yaasin, stressed on Sunday, commenting on the same day's explosion which resulted in wounding tens of Israelis in Netanya, north of Tel Aviv, that his movement "opposes launching attacks against civilians, but it will continue to resist the Israeli occupation."

Yassin told journalists in Gaza, "We are against attacking civilians, and we will continue to resist the occupation as far as there is an occupied land and a Palestinian people in Diaspora."

He continued, "We took attacking civilians from the dictionary of war and we only attack civilians if the Palestinian citizens are attacked. In this case it is our right to defend ourselves."

For his part one of Hamas' key leaders, Ismael Abu Shanab, on Sunday denied any connection between the movement and the Netanya explosions. In an interview he gave on Sunday to Israel Radio, Abu Shanab added, "Hamas is not responsible for this incident, and it had made it clear earlier that its activities do not target Israeli civilians rather the Israeli soldiers and settlers."

On the permanent status negotiations between the Palestinian Authority and Israel, Abu Shanab called on the Palestinian government or any other negotiating Palestinian side not to give up the principles of the Palestinian cause for the sake of which, "We paid a lot of our martyrs' blood."