Hamas

Hamas: Hatred and murder as solutions. HOWARD B. SCHIFFER Santa Barbara

BEIRUT - United Nations monitors on Thursday visited the scene of an explosion in the Syrian city of Hama that antigovernment activists said had killed 70 people, many of them women and children. Homes in the Mashaa al-Tayyar neighborhood were targeted Wednesday, they said, by rockets or shells fired by forces loyal to President Bashar Assad. State media blamed the explosion on a "terrorist group" that accidentally set off an explosive in a house used to make bombs. Sixteen people died and 12 were injured, the report said.

Hamas, the Palestinian faction viewed by many in the West as a nest of terrorists and Islamic hard-liners, is battling a curious new epithet: moderate. Fifteen months after a punishing Israeli offensive failed to dislodge Hamas from power in the Gaza Strip, rival resistance groups and some former supporters say the organization has become too political, too secular and too soft. "People in the street say Hamas has changed," said Abu Ahmed, spokesman for the military wing of Islamic Jihad, a Palestinian armed group in Gaza that complained recently that Hamas had arrested four of its militants as they tried to attack Israeli soldiers near the border.

This seaside territory was abuzz with preparations for an elaborate homecoming ceremony, including a 21-gun salute, tearful family reunions and the largest stage ever built in the Gaza Strip in order to hold scores of Palestinian prisoners after their expected release Tuesday in exchange for Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit. But for Hamas, the Islamic militant group that controls Gaza and negotiated the swap with Israel, the hard part will be sustaining those high public spirits after the stage is dismantled and the decorative banners torn down.

Ismail Haniyeh, prime minister of the Hamas government in the Gaza Strip, on Monday denounced the U.S. killing of Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden in Pakistan. "We condemn the assassination and the killing of an Arab holy warrior," Haniyeh told reporters, according to Reuters. "We regard this as a continuation of the American policy based on oppression and the shedding of Muslim and Arab blood. " His words were likely to do nothing for the reputation of the Islamist party, which popularized suicide bombings against Israel and is considered a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union.

Re "Obama move alarms Israel supporters," April 27 I am stunned at the response of some in Congress regarding the president's suggestion that we attempt to engage Hamas. What are our choices? Do business as usual? I think that there are many people here and in Israel who think that Israel's position regarding the Palestinians is intransigent. However, we have not made our aid contingent on ceasing the expansion of settlements. I say let's make this overture and see if we can make progress settling this terrible situation.

The editorial "The True Face of Insanity" (March 10) stated that peace is invariably the victim when the extremists are in a position to inflict their bitter and irrational pain. "That's certainly the case in the Middle East, whether the perpetrator is a hardened and trained Hamas operative or a fundamentalist Jewish settler who suddenly snaps." I have a major problem with the double standard underpinning that statement. The Hamas operative is described as hardened and trained, but Baruch Goldstein, an army reservist in his military uniform who carried a machine gun, who was a member of Kach Party and a follower of Meir Kahane, was a fundamentalist who suddenly snapped.

Israeli forces killed a Hamas militant Monday, bulldozing the house where he was hiding after he refused to surrender during a late-night raid, officials said. The body of Ali Sweiti, 42, who was suspected in the 2004 killing of an Israeli soldier, was pulled from the rubble in the West Bank town of Beit Awwa, near Hebron. Sweiti, who had two wives and 14 children, was known as a senior member of the Izzidin al-Qassam Brigade, the armed wing of the Islamist movement Hamas.

With reconciliation talks between leading Palestinian movements Fatah and Hamas apparently at another impasse, hopes of an accord are fading fast. In the wake of a violent split in June 2007, when a coalition government collapsed, the more moderate Fatah has been in control of the West Bank and the militant Islamist Hamas has run the Gaza Strip, in effect dividing the Palestinian cause. Munib Masri, a Palestinian businessman and head of the Reconciliation Committee, an advocacy group that is trying to push the parties back together, explained why he's still optimistic, even when others say it's time to start viewing the Palestinian fracture as permanent.

Hamas police set up checkpoints across Gaza to prevent pilgrims from leaving for a holy Muslim ritual in Saudi Arabia, beating some who tried to dodge barriers, witnesses said. The Islamic militants who rule Gaza were upset that the pilgrims had coordinated their journey with Hamas' rival, the Palestinian Authority. The authority, based in the West Bank, is run by the Fatah movement. Hamas seized control of Gaza from Fatah-allied forces last year, and animosity between the rivals has grown in recent months.

Images of the lanky soldier with dark eyes have haunted Israel for five years, but Gilad Shalit may finally be heading home. Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas announced an agreement Tuesday to free Shalit, who was seized in 2006 in a cross-border raid near the Gaza Strip, in exchange for the release of more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners. The Israeli soldier's capture pushed Israel to tighten a punishing blockade around the seaside enclave, where 1.5 million Palestinians continue to grapple with widespread poverty.

In Lewis Carroll's "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland," the heroine falls down a rabbit hole into a confusing fantasy world. Writing today, Carroll might have placed Alice in the 66th General Assembly of the United Nations, where Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas plans this week to seek U.N. recognition of statehood. If Alice was perplexed by the Mad Hatter or the Queen of Hearts, it would be interesting to see her reaction to a president whose mandate has long expired applying for statehood over territory, part of which he is too afraid to visit.

Government tanks, state security agents and plainclothes loyalist militiamen known as shabiha raided cities in northern and central Syria on Sunday, in what residents said was a manhunt for one of the highest-ranking officials yet to defect to the opposition. Activists reported 14 people killed Sunday by government forces seeking to crush the nearly six-month uprising against President Bashar Assad. Most of the day's government attacks on civilians occurred in the cities of Hama, Homs and Idlib and the suburbs of Damascus, the Syrian capital, according to the Local Coordination Committees of Syria opposition coalition.

As Palestinian militants tried to forge a tentative cease-fire agreement with Israel on Sunday, pressure was building on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to retaliate for the latest round of violence by launching a major military campaign in the Gaza Strip similar to the 22-day Operation Cast Lead in late 2008. After visiting hospitalized Israelis who were injured by rocket attacks over the weekend, Vice Prime Minister Silvan Shalom said Israel should take decisive military action to discourage future Palestinian strikes.

Raed Habbal was not a particularly devout Muslim, a relative recalls. The 19-year-old college student and scion of a socialist family in the city of Hama even occasionally took a swig of alcohol with friends, the relative says. But during the 1982 uprising in Hama, the young man was snatched up by security forces aiming to crush what they called an armed Islamist revolt. By the time the government crackdown ended, then-Syrian leader Hafez Assad's forces had flattened swaths of Hama, the country's fourth-largest city, and killed tens of thousands of civilians.

Syrian protesters answered President Bashar Assad's bid to crush a popular uprising by military force with defiance Friday, braving gunfire and tanks to turn out by the tens of thousands around the capital and across the country. It was the first major day of demonstrations since an offensive in the city of Hama began six days earlier. They signaled the failure so far of Assad's use of the military to try to regain full control of his country. At least 24 people were killed, 13 of them in Damascus, the capital, and its outskirts, according to the Local Coordination Committee in Syria, a coalition of opposition groups.

Former President Carter met with the exiled leader of Hamas and his deputy, two Palestinians the U.S. government has labeled terrorists and Israel accuses of masterminding attacks that have killed hundreds of civilians. Carter is the most prominent American to hold talks with Khaled Meshaal. Carter says Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, must be engaged in order to achieve peace between Israel and the Palestinians.

Re "Israel stymies Gaza students," May 31 It is the Palestinian bombings that create barriers to free travel for Gazans. The Times depicts the problem almost as if Israel had nothing better to do than prevent free travel. Why don't these students blame Hamas? Why does Egypt also blockade the peaceful Gazans? David Meyers Tujunga

Residents fleeing the central Syrian city of Hama on Thursday said bodies lay in the streets and a humanitarian crisis was looming as forces loyal to President Bashar Assad pressed forward with an assault on the opposition stronghold. A summary of fragmentary accounts compiled by the Local Coordinating Committee of Syria, an opposition activist network, said at least 30 people were killed in the city Wednesday by sustained bombardment and shooting. It said many of the dead were buried in makeshift graves in parks.

The U.N. Security Council condemned the violent crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators in Syria on Wednesday as authorities intensified the assault on a city that symbolizes resistance to President Bashar Assad's autocratic rule. The Security Council, which has been deadlocked over Syria for three months, expressed "grave concern at the deteriorating situation," and called on authorities "to fully respect human rights and to comply with their obligations under applicable international law. Those responsible for the violence should be held accountable.