The militant Islamic organization Hamas announced yesterday it was halting suicide attacks in Israel after Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's campaign to crack down on the movement touched off clashes between Palestinians.
Other militant groups that have carried out suicide bombings and attacks in Israel did not say whether they would follow Hamas' lead, and Israel dismissed the decision as a tactical move to delay the clampdown demanded by world leaders.
The move seemed designed to prevent clashes between police and Hamas worsening into a Palestinian civil war, and offered at least some hope of staunching bloodshed which has surged in the last few weeks of the 15-month-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
But in the Jabaliya refugee camp in the Gaza Strip, a gun and grenade battle erupted between Palestinian police and supporters of the militant Islamic Jihad group. At least 40 people were wounded, hospital officials said.
"We declare the suspension of martyrdom attacks inside the occupied land of 1948 and a suspension of mortar fire until further notice," Hamas, referring to the Jewish state founded in 1948, said in a statement calling for "national unity."
Israeli officials dismissed the decision, taken after talks between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority, as a sham.
"This is a tactical move by Hamas which is a terrorist organization," said Gideon Meir, a senior Foreign Ministry official. "I think there is an agreement, a silent agreement to postpone the crackdown for a while."
Hamas, the main group behind a recent wave of suicide bombings that have killed 29 people in Israel over the past month, made the decision after a meeting overnight with Palestinian Authority officials in the Gaza Strip.
Leaving the door open to attacks on soldiers or Jewish settlers in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Hamas official Saed Sayam said Hamas would "preserve the right of resistance against the occupation and right to respond to Israel's crimes."
Hamas and Islamic Jihad reject any compromise with Israel and have long attacked targets inside the Jewish state. Other factions, such as Arafat's Fatah, recognize Israel and accept a two-state solution to the conflict.
The violence in Jabaliya began after mourners at the teenager's funeral opened fire at a Palestinian police building and police shot back.
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