WarSclerotic

According to Haniyeh, it is Israel and not Hamas that is intent on keeping the conflict going between the two sides.

Hamas is “not looking for more violence,” Haniyeh told a group of Red Cross delegates visiting the Gaza Strip earlier this week.

The Hamas leader, who was elected to head the movement’s cabinet and took over leadership of Gaza after a bloody 2007 coup deposed Palestinian Authority in the coastal territory, told the delegates that he hoped his prediction of war would not come into fruition.

Haniyeh said that should such an offensive occur, Hamas would be prepared to retaliate.

“Our people will not surrender; they will fight back,” Prime Minister Haniyah’s office said, in a statement.

He also said he hoped that “the world will stop Israel from killing more children,” according to the Iranian network.

Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi this week told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that Hezbollah is in possession of missiles with a range of 300-325 kilometers.

At the same meeting, Ashkenazi said that the army was carrying out numerous investigations into its soldiers’ conduct during the war in Gaza earlier this year and was willing to look into any complaint of misconduct.

His comments came amid an international frenzy over a UN-commissioned report accusing both Israel and Hamas of war crimes during the January conflict. Israel has denounced the Goldstone report as one-sided and biased.

“The [Goldstone] report and the claims that came out of it necessitate some sort of response,” said IDF Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi, of a UN-commissioned report that accuses both Israel and Hamas of committing war crimes during the offensive in the Gaza Strip earlier this year