GAZA CITY, Jan 31 (AFP) - Eight Palestinian militant groups threatened to resume attacks against Israel Monday if the army did not call an immediate halt to its operations, a spokesman for the military wing of the main Islamist group Hamas told AFP.
"Eight militant groups will resume their attacks against Israel if the Israeli aggression does not immediately stop," an Ezzedin al-Qassam spokesman said in a phone call to AFP.
The caller, who said he was speaking on behalf of eight factions, said a statement would be issued shortly.
The threat came just hours after a 10-year-old Palestinian girl was shot dead at a United Nations-run school in the southern Gaza town of Rafah, which the Palestinians blamed on Israel.
The Israeli army declined to confirm the killing saying it was aware of only two occasions of its troops opening fire in the area, neither of them near the school, but urged a joint investigation with the Palestinians.
The war of words threatened to scupper a delicate "cooling down" period negotiated by new Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas, which has seen an air of relative calm settle on the troubled territory.
Militant groups have conditioned a formal ceasefire on a halt to Israeli military operations, as well as the release of Palestinian prisoners.
Over the past week, there has been a dramatic decline in the number of mortar and rocket attacks against Israeli targets from the Gaza Strip, following the deployment of over 4,000 Palestinian security personnel with orders to halt militant operations.
01/31/2005 20:09 GMT - AFP