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Hamas backtracks on apology over harming civilians

06 February 2010 21:08 (UTC +04:00)

Baku â€“ APA. The Hamas government in Gaza on Saturday backtracked on its apology earlier this week in which it expressed regret for harming Israeli civilians in rocket attacks, APA reports citing â€œAssociated Pressâ€.

The apology had signaled a rare deviation from Hamas’ violent ideology, and the subsequent zigzag reflects the Islamic militants’ conflicting objectives.

Hamas, which seized Gaza by force in 2007, is trying to reach out to the West in hopes of winning recognition and getting Israel to lift its blockade of Gaza. However, Hamas is also reluctant to discard its violent ideology for fear of losing credibility at home.

The apology for the rockets was part of the Hamas government’s response to a U.N. report that alleged both Hamas and Israel committed war crimes during Israel’s three-week Gaza offensive last winter.

The U.N. investigators, headed by jurist Richard Goldstone, accused Hamas of firing rockets indiscriminately at Israeli civilians. The U.N. report also said Israel used disproportionate force and deliberately targeted civilians. Some 1,400 Gazans were killed, among them hundreds of civilians, as well as 13 Israelis.

"Hamas is a terror organization whose main purpose is to attack civilians, so its not surprising that they would retract their apology," Foreign Ministry spokesman Andy David told AP Saturday.

Both Israel and Hamas have rejected the war crimes allegations.

On Thursday, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon refused to pass judgment on the reports, saying "no determination can be made on the implementation of the resolution by the parties concerned."