Battle with Israel "not over" despite ceasefire: Hamas chief

Ismail Haniyeh, the Hamas chief, said that the battle with Israel is "not over" although the new wave of violence in the Gaza Strip is over.

Haniyeh made the remarks on Sunday after he gave his condolences to the Abu Malhous family which lost eight of its members in the last round of violence between Israel and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Xinhua news agency reported.

"Our victory in the previous round is not counted by the number of the fired rockets, nor by the losses sustained, but by the fact that resistance has completely paralyzed the entity (Israel) during the escalation," he told reporters.

Last week, a new wave of violence broke out between Israel and Gaza's militant groups after Israel bombed the house of Baha Abu al-Atta, a senior Islamic Jihad commander, killing him and his wife.

In response, the militant group fired barrages of rockets into Israel, before Israeli war aircraft retaliated by launching airstrikes on Gaza, killing 35 Palestin including women and children.

On Thursday, Egypt brokered a cease-fire between the two sides, which remained fragile as several more rockets were fired from Gaza into Israel and Israeli war aircraft fired back.

Meanwhile, Khaled al-Batsh, a senior Islamic Jihad leader, slammed the earlier remarks of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that Israel did not pledge anything in Gaza in return for the cessation of hostilities.

He warned Netanyahu against manipulating the cease-fire agreement reached last week under Egyptian and UN auspices.

"The cease-fire agreement provides for a cessation of the criminal Israeli aggression," al-Batsh noted.

( With inputs from IANS )