Hamas urges Palestinians to confront Israeli measures

<div>The Islamic Hamas Movement has urged the Palestinians to confront Israeli measures in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

"The barbaric Israeli aggression against Jerusalem and its plan of constructing 1,000 settlement units in the West Bank are real dangers," Abdulatif al-Qanou'a, Hamas spokesman in Gaza, said in a statement to Xinhua news agency on Monday.

He called on the Palestinians in East Jerusalem and the West Bank to join daily protests, marches and demonstrations against Israel to defend Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa Mosque.

Al-Qanou'a also called on the Palestinian militant groups to escalate "armed attacks" against Israel in the West Bank "to prevent it from implementing its plan of annexing parts of the West Bank".

Yesterday morning, militants of al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, test-fired eight long-range rockets into the sea of Gaza, said the Hamas-run ministry of interior.

Observers said firing testing rockets from Gaza into the sea "is a warning message to Israel that Hamas owns a big arsenal of weapons".

Also yesterday morning, masked youths fired dozens of incendiary balloons carrying explosives from Gaza into southern Israel, causing massive fires in the Israeli agricultural fields.</div>
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<div> Israeli warplanes destroyed two posts belonging to Hamas militants in the northern Gaza Strip in response to burning balloon attacks from the Palestinian enclave.</div>
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Hamas had seized control of the Gaza Strip in the summer of 2007 following weeks of internal fighting with the security forces of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

All mediations made between the Islamic movement and the Fatah movement of President Mahmoud Abbas to end more than 13 years of internal division have so far failed.

Despite a history of strife, Fatah and Hamas recently announced their agreement to put differences aside to confront Israeli plan to annex parts of the West Bank.

Last month, dozens of Palestinians also launched a campaign to urge the Fatah and Hamas movements to achieve national reconciliation, saying it "will contribute to ending the Israeli blockade against the Palestinians and help us confront the Israeli threats against our cause".</div>
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