CAIRO/GAZA—The militant Islamist group Hamas warned Israel on Saturday of a third uprising unless there was progress towards a Palestinian state based on pre-1967 borders.
Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal issued the warning at a news conference in Cairo, telling the United States and Europe they had six months to seize a "historic chance" to settle the conflict once a Palestinian unity cabinet is formed between Hamas and rival group Fatah.
But forming the government is subject to talks between the two groups and faces several obstacles, including obtaining guarantees to ensure the end of a Western financial ban on the Palestinian Authority once the cabinet takes power.
Shortly before Meshaal's ultimatum, Palestinian militants fired rockets into Israel, residents said. Israeli tank shells later wounded two people in north Gaza, hospital officials said. The Israeli army said the shells were fired at rocket launchers.
In Gaza City, an Israeli aircraft attacked a car carrying Hamas militants, killing one of the men and wounding four, the movement said. Confirming the strike, the Israeli military said the Hamas squad was involved in weapons production.
The Popular Resistance Committees and three small Fatah-affiliated militant groups announced they would cease rocket attacks on Israel from 6 a.m. (0400 GMT) on Sunday, as part of an offer by Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas to halt such launchings if Israeli strikes ended.
But Hamas's armed wing, along with Islamic Jihad and the Abu El-Reesh Brigades, affiliated with Fatah, said they would continue their rocket strikes.
"We will not stop rocket firings as long as raids and assassinations continue and before Israel ends all forms of attacks," said Abu Ubaida, spokesman for Hamas's Izz el-Deen al-Qassam Brigades.
Israeli forces also killed a Palestinian militant in the strip on Saturday, and in a separate incident overnight shot dead an unidentified Palestinian approaching the strategic Karni border crossing.
"We give them six months and the real political horizon will open up," said Meshaal, in Cairo to discuss efforts to form the unity government and a possible prisoner exchange with Israel.
If progress is not made, Meshaal said, the Palestinian Authority could collapse and "the Palestinian people will close all the political ledgers and come out in a third intifada (uprising) project and the struggle will be wide open".
Israel Sceptical
Israeli Public Security Minister Avi Dichter questioned whether Hamas could make good on the threat.
"If it could carry out a third uprising, it would do it tomorrow," Dichter told Israel's Channel Two television.
Palestinians began an uprising in 2000 in which they launched frequent attacks inside Israel.
Since a ceasefire was declared in 2005, there has been a sharp reduction in such strikes in the Jewish state, which has carried out what it calls "targeted killings" of militants and has been constructing a barrier in the West Bank.
Hamas has rejected Western demands it renounce violence, recognise Israel and accept existing interim peace accords.
Those agreements in the early 1990s, aimed at creating a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza, which Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war, led to the cessation of the first Palestinian uprising that began in 1987.
Palestinians want a state in all of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Israel quit Gaza last year and says it intends to keep major Jewish settlement blocs in the West Bank in any final peace agreement.
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