Hamas chief offers to attack only military targets;says Israeli soldier alive...

The leader of the radical Palestinian Hamas movement has told Sky News he is offering Israel a deal to attack only military targets and that an abducted Israeli soldier is alive. In an exclusive interview in Damascus, Khalid Meshaal said he was renewing an offer first made to the Israelis 10 years ago."We renew our offer to Israel to let the civilians on both sides not be a part of this conflict," he said. "We renew this offer today."Mr Meshaal, who is a target for Israeli assassination, said if Israel agreed it would not kill any Palestinian civilians then Hamas would only carry out attacks against Israeli military targets.He also gave confirmation for the first time in almost a year that the Israeli soldier captured in 2006 and held in Gaza is alive."Gilad (Shalit) is alive and we are treating him well but Israel is treating the Palestinian prisoners they hold very badly."Also during the interview, the Hamas leader appeared to question the opinion of the respected Holocaust historians."We don't deny the Holocaust, but we believe the Holocaust was exaggerated by the Zionist movement to whip people," he said."We don't deny the fact but we don't accept two issues. We don't accept the exaggerating of numbers and we don't accept that Israel uses this to do what it wants." Those comments will infuriate Israel and Jews around the world but the Israeli government may also want clarification on the offer not to target civilians.
A deal is unlikely but it could be a way forward to a truce on Hamas suicide bombings.Mr Meshaal also called for talks with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.Last year, Hamas overthrew the President's Fatah party in Gaza and took power. Since then, the Palestinians have been split between Gaza and the West Bank."We invite Mr Abbas to come for unconditional talks in Gaza. Talks on how to address the reasons for the split and to return Gaza and the West Bank to unity and solve the security problem," he said.
http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30200-1311185,00.html

As in the days of Noah....