Hamas claims it carried out 54pc attacks on Israeli targets in 5 years

GAZA CITY: Hamas militants, jockeying to take credit for Israel’s Gaza Strip pullout, said they were involved in 54 percent of 400 attacks on Israeli targets in Gaza in the past five years. The figures appeared on a Hamas website Monday, the day Israel set out to clear the last of its 21 Gaza settlements, Netzarim. Hamas said its numbers were reliable because they were culled from Israeli military statistics _ a claim that could not immediately be verified. Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said the figures “are a document of Hamas’ struggle and Hamas’ role in liberating this precious part of the homeland.” They show that “resistance is the Palestinians’ strategy of choice,” Abu Zuhri said. “It made this victory possible, and this victory can be repeated,” he said, referring to Israel’s Gaza withdrawal. According to the figures posted by Hamas, the group was involved in 217 of 400 attacks against Israeli targets between September 2000, when the second Palestinian uprising against Israel began, and Aug. 15, 2005, the date Israel began pulling out of Gaza. The Al Aqsa Brigades, affiliated with Palestinian leader Mohammed Abbas’ ruling Fatah party, were responsible for 22 attacks, or 5.5 percent of the total. The Islamic Jihad carried out 34 attacks, or 8.5 percent of the total, according to the Hamas claim. Hamas also claimed responsibility for killing 79 of the 167 Israeli soldiers who the group said died in militant attacks in Gaza over the past five years. Other factions killed 37 soldiers, or 22.2 percent of the total. Fifty-one soldiers, or 30.5 percent of the total, died in joint operations, Hamas said. ap

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