Hamas Breaks Off Dialogue With Palestinian PM

The summit in Aqaba "declared war on the Palestinian people," and the Abbas’ government was not doing anything for legitimate national rights, he said.

Abbas had caved in, effectively "fulfilling all the wishes of Sharon" by "giving away historical Palestinian rights, notably on Jerusalem, the right of refugees to return and the freeing of prisoners," Rantissi said.

"Abu Mazen closed the door to dialogue by himself," Rantisi said. "He committed himself in front of Bush and Sharon (to) what Palestinians refused."

Rantissi also called for massive demonstrations Friday to protest the "dangerous results" of this week’s peace summit in Jordan, which brought together Abbas, Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon and U.S. President George W. Bush.

He said the demonstrations, following Friday Muslim prayers at midday, would take place at several refugee camps in the Gaza Strip, as well as the Gaza towns of Rafah and Khan Yunis.

Another demonstration was slated for Friday night in Gaza City.

Rantissi made the comments a day after Israel assassinated two Palestinian activists in a raid in the West Bank city of Tulkarm.

At the summit on Wednesday, June 4, Abbas said there was "no military solution to our conflict. We repeat our denunciation and renunciation of terrorism and violence against Israelis wherever they might be.

"We will exert our full efforts using all our resources to end the militarization of the intifada, and we will succeed. The armed intifada must end, and we must resort to peaceful means in our quest to end the occupation, the suffering of the Palestinians and the Israelis, and to establish our Palestinian state.

Hamas, its smaller rival, Islamic Jihad, and two secular radical groups have already announced in response that they will refuse to lay down their arms.

Abbas had said on May 29 he expected to reach a ceasefire agreement with Hamas this week, a forecast that now appears to have been overly optimistic.

"I believe that next week I will reach a ceasefire agreement with Hamas," Abbas told the Israeli daily Yediot Aharonot.

"Hamas will undertake to stop terrorism both inside the Green Line and in the territories," Abbas said. "In the wake of the agreement with Hamas I hope also to reach an agreement with the Tanzim and Islamic Jihad, but we have not had a chance to meet yet."

The word Tanzim refers to armed groups linked to Fatah, the party founded in the late 1950s by Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and Abbas, and the most important of which is the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades.

The Green Line is the line separating Israel from the West Bank.

"We are engaged in talks on this subject with the organizations’ leaders abroad and with the activists in the prisons," Abbas added.

Rantissi suggested at the time that the Yediot story was putting too optimistic a spin on the situation, saying he did not consider the newspaper to be a reliable source.

He said "Hamas is still discussing the issue at the highest level but we haven’t reached a decision for the moment.

"Our position is unchanged, we agree to stop attacks against Israeli civilians if Israel stops its aggression against our people, the incursions and the assassinations. For a real ceasefire, we need attacks to be frozen on both sides."

When he was sworn in to office in April, Abbas vowed to disarm resistance groups in a bid to put an end to 32 months of bloodshed and implement the internationally drafted peace roadmap, which was the subject of Wednesday’s summit.