Hamas puts off showdown over Abbas referendum plan

GAZA, June 12 (Reuters) Hamas today backed away from a parliamentary showdown with President Mahmoud Abbas over his planned referendum on a statehood manifesto, saying it would allow more time for talks to resolve the dispute.

The Palestinian parliament convened to consider a motion by Hamas to declare illegal the July 26 referendum over the political document, which implicitly recognises Israel by envisaging a Palestinian state alongside it.

But the Islamic militant group, which formed a government after winning a January election and advocates Israel's destruction, said it would delay lodging the motion until June 20.

''If we succeed through dialogue in stopping the referendum then it will be better, but if we hit a dead end, parliament will assume its responsibilities and hold the vote,'' senior Hamas lawmaker Mushir al-Masri said.

Hamas, locked in a power struggle with Abbas, has a parliamentary majority. But there appeared to be little chance that Abbas, a moderate with wide presidential powers, would consider passage of the motion binding.

Opinion polls show strong support for the manifesto, penned by Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails. Israel has rejected it as a non-starter because of its call for a Palestinian state in the entire occupied West Bank and in the Gaza Strip.

Israel, which quit the Gaza Strip last year, has pledged to hold on forever to parts of the West Bank where major Jewish settlement blocs are located. The World Court considers all settlements Israel has built on occupied land illegal.

A resounding ''yes'' to the referendum's question, ''do you agree with the document of national agreement the prisoners' document?'' could weaken the Hamas government, already hit hard by a halt in international aid over its policies towards Israel.

GAZA VIOLENCE Palestinian political tensions again flared into violence.

Hamas gunmen fired rocket-propelled grenades and anti-tank rockets at the southern Gaza headquarters of the Preventive Security Service, an agency loyal to Abbas, witnesses said.

One person, a passerby, was killed and four people were wounded in the clash in the town of Rafah, which followed the killing earlier in the day of a gunman from a Hamas paramilitary unit.

A sharp surge in Israeli-Palestinian violence along the Gaza frontier, and a declaration by Hamas that a 16-month-old truce has ended, have made chances for peacemaking even more remote.

In a radio interview, a senior member of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's party threatened Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas with assassination if the group renewed suicide bombings in Israel.

Asked about Tzachi Hanegbi's comments, an aide to Olmert suggested the lawmaker had spoken on his own initiative. ''No one speaks in the name of the prime minister,'' said the aide, accompanying Olmert in Britain.

Haniyeh said Hanegbi's threat was indicative of ''a type of political madness from some Israeli leaders''.

Hamas carried out nearly 60 suicide bombings in Israel after the start of a Palestinian uprising in 2000 but halted such attacks in mid-2004 and has largely abided by a ceasefire reached in early 2005.

Hamas declared the truce dead on Friday after seven Palestinians, including three children, were killed on a Gaza beach on a day of Israeli shelling.

Israel voiced regret at the killings, although it has not admitted responsibility. An Israeli military investigation of the incident is under way.

Since ending the ceasefire, Hamas has fired dozens of rocket barrages from Gaza into Israel.

Reuters SY GC