Hamas Official Hints at Softening Toward Israel

JERUSALEM — A leader of Hamas said Friday that the militant group could endorse the creation of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, hinting at acceptance of Israel’s right to exist.

However, it was unclear whether the official, Sheik Hassan Yousef, spoke with the full backing of the organization. Israel called his statements highly conditional and said they would need to be backed by deeds.

Hamas, which is formally known as the Islamic Resistance Movement, has long been committed to Israel’s destruction. It has killed and maimed hundreds of Israelis in suicide bombings and other attacks.

The group has joined other Palestinian factions jockeying for influence in advance of the Jan. 9 election to replace the late Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat. Although Hamas is boycotting the vote, it enjoys a wide following among Palestinians, particularly in Gaza, and its views carry considerable weight.

In recent days, it has issued several statements that could point to a softening of its stance -- accompanied, however, by demands Israel considers unacceptable.

Hamas says it seeks a pullout of all Israeli forces and Jewish settlers from the West Bank and Gaza Strip, together with sovereignty over East Jerusalem, the release of all Palestinian prisoners and the removal of the separation wall Israel is building in the West Bank.

“Everything I am saying about the possibility of a cease-fire and a sovereign Palestinian state is in line with statements by Sheik Ahmed Yassin,” Yousef said in a telephone interview from the West Bank town of Ramallah, referring to the Hamas spiritual leader who was assassinated by Israel in March.

The West Bank leadership of Hamas, of which Yousef is part, is considered less influential than its policymaking echelon in the Gaza Strip and outside the Palestinian territories, primarily in Syria. However, Yousef was recently released from nearly two years in an Israeli prison, and jail time customarily bestows a measure of prestige on the militant leaders.

An Israeli official said that despite a lull in attacks by militant groups since Arafat’s death Nov. 11, he saw no reason to think that Hamas’ ideology had undergone any meaningful change.

“I’d like Hamas to turn into a democratic party, but there is no indication they are about to do so,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev said. “I haven’t seen any serious questioning of the principles of jihad or anyone saying the strategy of suicide bombings is morally offensive.”

Hamas has said in the past that it would accept the creation of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza only as a prelude to a state encompassing all of historic Palestine, including present-day Israel.

Yousef told Reuters news agency that if Israel bowed to Hamas’ conditions, “we can have a cease-fire for a period of time.... It may be a long period.”

On Thursday, Gaza-based Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar indicated the group might consider a halt to attacks against Israel to help ensure the presidential election can be carried out. Hamas’ last major attack was a double bus bombing Aug. 31 in Beersheba, in which 16 passengers died.

Israel has said it will act with restraint ahead of the Palestinian elections as long as relative calm prevails, but it said its military reserved the right to strike in the event of an intelligence warning of an imminent attack.

Despite a lower level of confrontation, scattered violence persisted. On Friday, Israeli troops shot and killed a member of the militant group Islamic Jihad in the northern West Bank town of Jenin.

The Israeli army said the slain man, Mahmoud Hammad, was trying to escape after troops surrounded the safe house in which he was hiding.