A senior Hamas political official in Gaza said on Friday the radical Islamic group was ”sorry about the death of Americans or foreigners” in Wednesday’s Jerusalem bombing at Hebrew University, which its armed wing claims.
”We are sorry about the deaths of foreigners or Americans … Hamas’ Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades only target Israelis and nobody else,” Abdelaziz al-Rantissi told AFP.
But he said that while Hamas regretted the deaths it would not apologise to Washington.
”Hamas will not send any message of apology to the United States because they don’t send us their apologies when Israel kills our sons with a US green light and US arms,” he added.
Seven people, including five US citizens and two Israelis, were killed in Wednesday’s university bombing and more that 70 injured.
The attack was carried out by the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades in what it said was revenge for the assassination of one of its most senior military leader, Salah Shehade, in a Gaza City air raid on July 22.
Fourteen people died along with Shehade when an Israeli warplane struck the residential area where he had been hiding out.
Meanwhile, an 85-year-old Palestinian woman was killed Friday by Israeli fire in the southern Gaza Strip on Friday, her son said.
Fatma Abu Daher sustained critical injuries when she was shot in the abdomen early on Friday, and died in the Israeli hospital of Soroka in Beersheva a few hours later.
She was sleeping in a hut adjacent to her house, near the military base of Kissufim when she was shot.
No clashes were taking place at the time of the incident, her son said.
Soroka hospital officials confirmed the woman had died of gunshot wounds but said it did not know who had fired the fatal shot.
The army said it was looking into the incident. The latest death brings the toll of 22 months of the Palestinian uprising, or intifada, to 2 400 people killed as a direct result of the violence, including 1 771 Palestinians and 586 Israelis. – Sapa-AFP