LUXEMBOURG - EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said the decision of the armed wing of the Palestinian movement Hamas to end a five-month truce with Israel was "very bad news".
He urged Hamas and Israel to "behave in a constructive manner" after the Palestinian movement abandoned a truce in response to Israeli raids.
"This is very bad news and we hope very much that this is not an end of a process that has been maintained with peace and moderation for a long time," Solana said.
"I plead with everybody on both sides to really behave in a constructive manner because there is a window of opportunity in which things that are positive may take place," he told journalists in Luxembourg.
"Everybody has a responsibility not to contribute to make difficult or impossible these movements in the right direction."
The armed wing of the movement Hamas earlier Tuesday declared its five-month truce with Israel over after Israeli forces killed nine Palestinians in a series of raids over the weekend.
The group, which the United States and Europe consider terrorists, quickly fired a salvo of mortar shells and homemade rockets into southern Israel. Tuesday was the anniversary of the Jewish state`s creation.
Under the terms of the truce announced last November, Israel`s army withdrew troops from the Gaza Strip in return for an undertaking by militant groups to halt rocket fire into Israel.
The truce largely held, but not all groups signed up to it on the Palestinian side and some rocket fire against Israel continued.
04/24/2007 17:55 GMT