Cash crisis, attacks put pressure on Hamas

Palestinian premier Ismail Haniya yesterday accused the West of blackmail after the US and EU froze badly needed aid, while president Mahmud Abbas warned that a new unilateral Israeli withdrawal would lead to more bloodshed.

The declarations came as the Israeli military stepped up its attacks in the Gaza Strip, carrying out two deadly air strikes in which eight Palestinians were killed in a bid to stem ongoing militant rocket fire into Israel.

One raid in northern Gaza targeted two members of the militant Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades group, responsible for most of the firing of the makeshift rockets, which have caused little damage.

On Friday night, six Palestinians were killed at a training base for the Popular Resistance Committees militant group in the southern Gaza Strip in one of the deadliest air strikes in months.

Squeezed between the intensification of Israeli attacks and massive international pressure, the newly elected Hamas government is struggling to establish order within and legitimacy abroad.

The radical Islamist group has been under massive Western pressure to recognise Israel's right to exist, renounce its support for armed struggle and respect past Palestinian agreements with Israel.

But on Friday the United States and the European Union both announced they were suspending millions of dollars in direct aid to the Palestinian Authority because Hamas refused to change its hardline positions regarding Israel.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the Hamas government, which catapulted to power in January elections, "must take responsibility for the consequences of its policies".

Both Washington and Brussels regard Hamas as a terrorist organisation.

US officials on Friday asked other governments to follow suit to pressure Hamas to return to the roadmap for Middle East peace, which calls for the creation of a Palestinian state that can co-exist with Israel.

The roadmap is backed by the quartet of the United States, Russia, the United Nations and the European Union.

Yet Palestinian prime minister Haniya remained defiant, accusing the west of blackmail and insisting his government will not crack under international pressure.