"This destruction against the Palestinian people's institutions, including the targeting of the power plant and the Prime Minister's office were true criminal acts," Abbas told reporters. "The world has to understand that this is a true criminal act," repeated Abbas. He is stuck in Gaza to oversee diplomatic efforts that aim to release the Israeli soldier.

Israeli army continued to take military actions against Palestinian people in Gaza on June 2, 2006. (Xinhua/Reuters Photo)

    Right after his office was bombarded, Haneya, who rarely shows up in Gaza following the Israeli threats to target him, visited his destroyed office before he held a meeting with President Abbas.

    Haneya told reporters that he condemned the Israeli airstrikes on his office and the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip, where he termed the airstrike as revelry, barbaric and rowdy. "The international community and the Arab league should carry their responsibility towards these ugly and awful attacks that lacks mind and logic," said Haneya.

    He added that such repressive Israeli actions would never force the Palestinian people to change their firm attitudes. Well-informed diplomatic sources in Gaza had earlier revealed that, in an effort to resolve the crisis, Egypt had given Hamas leadership a 24-hour ultimatum in order to accept its proposal on freeing the abducted Israeli soldier.

    Egypt warned that "if Hamas doesn't positively respond to the Egyptian initiative, then Egypt would announce that it would pullout from mediation to end the crisis."

    However, both Israel and Hamas government are not showing any possibility to make concessions on the abducted soldiers' crisis, and to avoid the Palestinian civilians a possible disaster.

    Ahmed Bahar, deputy to Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC)speaker and a senior Hamas leader, noted that "we believe that responding to the kidnappers' demands is not easy for Israel."

    The Palestinians, too, would not easily make concessions and release the Israeli soldier, even if all the Palestinian people would be eliminated by the occupation, he added. Enditem