Last update - 00:00 29/05/2007
PA official: Haniyeh limiting appearances, fears assassination by Israel
By The Associated Press
Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh has limited his public appearances because he fears being targeted for assassination by Israel, his spokesman said Tuesday.
"He is frightened by the Israeli forces," Ghazi Hamad told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. "He's scared of being assassinated ... so he is taking precautions."
Haniyeh has kept a low profile in recent weeks since Israel resumed a campaign of air strikes against Palestinian rocket squads and other Hamas targets in Gaza.
Over the weekend an Israel struck positions near Haniyeh's home, but said he was not a target.
But Hamad, on a visit to Britain before heading to Cairo to take part in talks between Hamas and its moderate rival Fatah, said the Hamas leadership felt unsafe after Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's comments on Sunday that no one is immune.
"We don't trust Israel," he said.
In the past two weeks, Palestinian militants have fired more than 250 rockets into southern Israel. Two Israeli civilians have been killed, and several thousand residents of the border town of Sderot have fled.
In response, the Israel Air Force has pummeled Hamas targets, killing some 50 Palestinians - most of them militants.
Meanwhile, British officials said they had met with Hamad to discuss the March 12 kidnapping in Gaza of British Broadcasting Corp. journalist Alan Johnston.
Officials from member nations of the European Union - which considers Hamas a terrorist group - have been banned from meeting with Hamas members since the militant group came to power in legislative elections last year. But a British official said the meeting with the Haniyeh's spokesman was limited to a discussion of the abducted journalist.
This was a purely consular action to underline that we expect his government to do everything in its power to get Alan Johnston released safely, said a Foreign Office spokeswoman, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with department policy.
Hamad said he couldn't comment on the talks, but last week he said that a breakthrough was close.
Johnston, 45, was abducted in Gaza City by Palestinian gunmen. Palestinian security officials have said they believe a shadowy movement called the Army of Islam is holding the correspondent.