Militants Reject Policy on Attacks in Israel
The opposition from Hamas and the smaller Islamic Jihad movement appeared to torpedo an effort, largely pressed by Yasir Arafat, to issue a formal declaration that was being hammered out in secret meetings in Gaza in recent days. Its language would have suggested that attacks be limited to Israeli soldiers and settlers in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.

"Hamas will not accept any document that does not give it the right of resistance on all Palestinian lands," said Ismail Abu Shanab, a Hamas leader in Gaza. Mr. Abu Shanab, who had taken part in the secret meetings, told Israeli radio that his group would continue to strike inside the 1948 borders of Israel.

Hamas also objected to limiting Palestinian claims to lands lost by Arabs in the 1967 war and to any proposal of negotiations with Israel.

Similarly, an Islamic Jihad official, Muhammad al-Hindi, indicated that his group intended to continue attacks inside Israel, saying, "There is no change in our position in regard to the resistance."

But a leader of the Tanzim, the grass-roots organization of Mr. Arafat's Fatah faction on the West Bank, said it had decided to halt all attacks inside Israel. He said he expected Al Aksa Martyrs Brigades to comply, despite a leaflet that the group, Tanzim's military offshoot, issued on Monday night to the contrary. "It is not part of Fatah's strategy," the official, Hussein al-Sheikh, said, "to harm innocent people and carry out attacks inside Israel. Our strategy is to set up a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip."

Mr. Sheikh was a crucial leader in an initiative late last month in which grass-roots Fatah leaders from the West Bank, assisted by European diplomats, met with Hamas officials in Gaza to try to work out an agreement for a unilateral cease-fire declaration. Learning of the initiative, senior Palestinian Authority figures from Mr. Arafat's circle tried a parallel initiative, under the direction of Muhammad Dahlan, the former security chief of Gaza.

The Palestinians halted the discussions after July 23, when the Israeli Air Force dropped a one-ton bomb in a Gaza City neighborhood, killing a Hamas military chief as well as 15 other people, including 9 children.

The efforts to curb some attacks on Israel reflect a debate among Palestinian activists over whether the suicide bomb attacks on civilians outside the West Bank and Gaza are helping or hurting their cause.

The Israeli Army's intelligence chief, Maj. Gen. Aharon Zeevi, told a Parliament committee today that Tanzim members were debating whether to continue the suicide bombings. But he said the Aksa Martyrs Brigades were siding with Hamas.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/14/international/middleeast/14MIDE.html