Israeli assault creates differences within Hamas: report

Heavy Israeli assault in Gaza that has killed over 900 Palestinians has so far failed to cripple the military wing of Hamas completely but has led to differences emerging within the outfit, with the leaders in Gaza more eager for a ceasefire, a media report said on Wednesday.

Citing Israeli intelligence officers, the New York Times reported that the military wing of Hamas has been hit "to a certain extent" with "a few hundred" fighters killed during the ground offensive that began midway through the war.

Hamas, however, is still able to launch 20 to 30 rockets a day, including 5 to 10 missiles of ranges longer than 20 kilometres, though the number has gone down by a third from the start of the war, the officers were quoted as saying.

The comments, said the New York Times, reflected a view among some Israeli officers that any lasting solution to the conflict would require either a breakthrough diplomatic accord that heavily restricts Hamas's military abilities or a deeper ground assault into urban areas of Gaza, known as a possible 'Phase Three' of the war.

The situation has been complicated by differences within Hamas, with those in Gaza preferring a ceasefire but their sponsors outside opposing it, the paper said, citing Egyptian officers.

The Israeli intelligence officers told the paper that there were some signs that the military assault had undermined Hamas's political cohesion, and that Hamas's leaders in hiding inside Gaza were more eager for a ceasefire than group leaders in exile.

They described this assessment as based on hard intelligence, presumably telephone intercepts, the paper said.

A senior Egyptian officer in Cairo was quoted as saying separately on Tuesday, that representatives of Hamas had disagreed openly when participating in continuing Egyptian efforts to broker a ceasefire.

Greater damage, they said, has been done to Hamas's capacity to run Gaza, with a large number of government buildings destroyed over the course of the operation.

In Egypt, efforts to broker a ceasefire were complicated by bickering inside Hamas, Egyptian officer said, adding that Hamas representatives in Gaza were eager for a ceasefire, but were being blocked because political decisions were being made by the group's leadership in Damascus, Syria.

"Hamas is in a very difficult position," the Egyptian officer told the paper. "On the ground, their militants are not doing as good a job, not matching their rhetoric. But politically, they have been totally taken over by their sponsors."

"The guys inside are holding their ground, but they don't want to continue the confrontation," the officer said.

Egypt talks to Hamas but is not eager to see the radical Islamic group running a small statelet next door, Times said.

Israeli officers were quoted as saying that they were delaying any expansion of the war until the negotiations succeeded or failed. But journalists and photographers along the Israeli border with Gaza said they saw large numbers of Israeli reservists moving into the territory, suggesting preparation for an intensified phase of the conflict, the Times reported.