Hamas, Plo Pact Called Key To Peace

A PLO leader predicted Saturday that some members of the militant group Hamas will continue attacks on Israelis if no agreement is reached between the group’s moderate leaders and the PLO authority.

But a Hamas leader denied that the group would splinter.

Hamas has been blamed for attacks on Israelis designed to derail the Israel-PLO peace process. PLO leader Yasser Arafat and Hamas leaders in the Gaza Strip have been working on an agreement in which Islamic militants would end the attacks and participate in Palestinian elections.

Some Hamas leaders, mainly outside the self-rule territories, remain strongly opposed to the Israel-PLO accords and to any easing of the group’s violent tactics.

“The Hamas leaders outside will be responsible for undermining the group’s unity if they continue their pressure and threats against the leadership inside,” Al-Tayeb Abdul Rahim, the Palestinian authority’s secretary-general, told Egypt’s Al-Ahram newspaper.

But Imad Falouji, a prominent Hamas leader in Gaza, criticized the remarks.

“Any bet that Hamas will split is a losing bet,” he said.

Hamas leaders have privately accused Arafat of trying to divide the movement - his main opponent in the West Bank and Gaza - by alternating between concessions and a crackdown.

Arafat met Friday for the first time with 12 Hamas leaders from the West Bank, and with Hamas delegates who had traveled to Sudan to confer with the group’s leaders there.