Hamas: We Carried Out 1,100 Major Attacks on Israel

From News From Jerusalem: 

• Hamas claims responsibility for terrorist attacks in Israel, Jerusalem
• We will not renounce resistance, recognize Israel 
• Two years since Israel's defensive operation against Hamas

Jerusalem - For the first time, Hamas claimed responsibility for a series of attacks between 2005 and 2010 that killed 15 Israeli soldiers and injured 47. They include a 2008 attack on a Jewish yeshiva (Talmudic college) in Jerusalem in which eight students died and some 30 were injured.

Hamas said it has carried out 1,115 major operations against Israel, according to its military wing spokesman Abu Obeida.

Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005 in the hope that would lead to a peace deal and the successful implementation of a two-state solution.

Palestinian terrorists fired twenty-four mortar shells and three Qassam rockets on Israel from Gaza in the past week.

There has also been an increase in terrorist activity along Israel's border with Gaza. Gunmen have repeatedly opened fire and tried to detonate explosives near the border over the past month.

Israel holds Iran-backed Hamas responsible for any attacks from Gaza against Israeli civilians.

One rocket injured a teenage girl when it landed near a kindergarten just south of Ashkelon, a city of about 120,000 located 31 miles (50 km) south of Tel Aviv.

Israel's Air Force struck an "active terror center in the northern Gaza Strip and a smuggling tunnel in the south. Direct hits were confirmed," it said in a statement on Sunday.

Israeli planes hit Gaza fighters as they were about to launch rockets on Israel on Dec. 18.

Hamas said it will not rest until Israelis would be "ousted from all Palestinian lands," Ahmed al-Jabari, a leader of Ezzedeen Al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas' military wing, said on Saturday.

Jabari spoke at a news conference commemorating the second anniversary of Cast Lead, Israel's three-week operation that aimed to prevent terrorist activity emanating from the Gaza Strip.

Hamas fires Qassam rockets that have a range of two to eight miles (four to 12 km) and Iranian Grad rockets, with a range of 12 miles (20 km), to terrorize Israeli civilians. The organization also has Fajr rockets, which bring the greater Tel Aviv area into its sights.

Hamas will never renounce "resistance" or recognize the "Israeli" state, the organization said on its 23rd anniversary on Dec. 14.

It also called on Fatah to abandon the peace process with Israel. 

"You will come to an end, and Palestine will stay ours with Jerusalem, the Aqsa Mosque, cities and villages from its sea to its river and from its north to its south; you have no right to any inch of its soil," said Mohamed al-Deif, a commander of Hamas' Al-Qassam Brigades, according to a statement on Saturday.