Pat Dollard | Young Americans

Hamas and the other Palestinian piglets continue to rain rockets down on Israeli residential neighborhoods. As you will read in the story below, killing old ladies and dropping rockets on little schoolgirls is all “self-defense.”

I got your self-defense right here, pal.

Time to glass Gaza.

Regarding the suicide bombing in Dimona a few days ago, you know, the one where the second guy took a few BOOM headshots reaching for his vest…

Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri defended the suicide bombing, which killed a 73-year-old Israeli woman. “There is no choice, no option for our people, but to resist the occupation and defend themselves by all possible means.”

JERUSALEM — A rocket fired from Gaza wounded two young sisters playing outside their home, and a top Israeli Cabinet Minister declared an all-front war on Hamas, as the escalating conflict threatened to bury US-led Mideast peace efforts.

Hamas stepped up its rocket barrages at southern Israel Wednesday for a second day, retaliating for an Israeli strike that killed seven of its police officers. More than a dozen rockets rained down, one exploding at Kibbutz Beeri, a communal village about 6 kilometers (4 miles) from the border fence, wounding two sisters, ages 12 and 2, as they played in their yard, police said. They were not seriously hurt. Their mother was taken to a hospital for shock.

Hamas also claimed responsibility for a Monday suicide bombing in southern Israel, its first such attack in Israel in more than three years, unleashing an intensified Israeli air campaign. After nightfall Wednesday, Israeli aircraft hit a metal workshop in central Gaza, Hamas said. No one was hurt. The military had no immediate comment.

The new upsurge in fighting threatened to overwhelm peacemaking efforts in an avalanche of rocket attacks, reprisals and bombings. A poll released Wednesday showed Hamas gaining a jump in popularity by breaking down the border wall at Egypt on Jan. 23, allowing Gaza’s quarantined people a 12-day taste of freedom before Egypt closed the breaches on Sunday.

Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri defended the suicide bombing, which killed a 73-year-old Israeli woman. “There is no choice, no option for our people, but to resist the occupation and defend themselves by all possible means,” he told The Associated Press.

Coupled with the suicide bombing and its renewed involvement in rocket attacks, Hamas was showing it could be an effective spoiler in peace efforts.

Hamas does not recognize a role for a Jewish state in an Islamic Middle East and has sent dozens of suicide bombers to explode inside Israel. The Islamic militants, who rule Gaza after expelling forces loyal to moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas last June, are not a party to peace talks renewed at a US-sponsored Mideast peace conference in November, where Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert pledged to work for a peace treaty this year.

However, Israel insists that Abbas must retake control of Gaza and neutralize militants before any peace accords are implemented. For the meantime, the balance of power is tilting toward Hamas.

While Hamas gains popularity and clout among Palestinians by breaking Israel’s stranglehold on Gaza, even temporarily, Abbas’ West Bank administration is strikebound — civil servants walked off the job Tuesday in a two-day protest against a new regulation aimed at forcing West Bank Palestinians to pay millions of dollars (euros) in back utility bills.

The strike showed that despite the renewal of foreign aid to Abbas’ regime, Palestinians under his control are still in serious economic trouble.

So are Palestinians in Gaza, but many are united in blaming Israel for their troubles. Israel, for its part, planned to keep up its economic pressure on Gaza. Last week Israel’s Supreme Court cleared the way for reduction in electricity supplies starting Thursday.

“We need to understand there is a war in the south,” Vice Premier Haim Ramon told Israel Radio. “The war against Hamas has to be fought on all fronts.”

It was unlikely that Abbas could press ahead with serious peace talks with Israel during a high profile conflict between Israel and Hamas, forcing Abbas to periodically condemn Israeli attacks and measures in the name of Palestinian solidarity.

On Wednesday, Abbas condemned the rocket fire but urged Israel to let supplies in.

“These rockets that are being fired at Israel must stop. It’s pointless,” he said at a news conference with Austrian Foreign Minister Ursula Plassnik. “At the same time, Israel should not use these rockets as a pretext for collective punishment on Palestinians in Gaza.”

In Gaza, the Hamas-dominated legislature cancelled Wednesday’s session, fearing an Israeli attack. The Israeli military refused to comment.

(Khaleej)