Hamas urges armed resistance against Israeli settlement

A senior Islamic Hamas movement official on Saturday called on Palestinians to take armed resistance against Israeli settlement in the Palestinian territories.

Israeli construction and expansion in the Palestinian territories "can stop only if the Palestinians resist it," said Ismail Haneya, the deputy chief of the movement.

He said so in a northern Gaza rally in support of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, adding that the expanding occupation ignores the outcomes of the recent Arab League Summit held in Jordan last week.

The Israeli government okayed the construction of a new Israeli settlement north of the West Bank city of Ramallah Thursday in place of a settlement post that was evacuated few weeks ago, according to an Israeli radio.

The radio reported that it is the first time in 20 years that the Israeli cabinet approves the construction of a new settlement in the West Bank, which was occupied by Israel in 1967.

Haneya also reacted to the Israeli assassin threats to Hamas leaders in the Gaza Strip, saying that "the threats ... won't scare us and prisons won't weaken us, and we will carry on with our resistance until liberation."