Hamas Provoked Attacks, Bush Says

President Bush issued a sharp condemnation of Hamas on Friday, accusing the Palestinian Islamist movement that controls the Gaza Strip of provoking Israeli military action with rocket attacks and then increasing the death toll by hiding among civilian populations.

In a recorded radio address that was released a day early, Bush avoided faulting Israel for civilian casualties and called for a monitoring system to curtail weapons smuggling into Gaza. Bush’s remarks, released in Washington, were his first public comments on the conflict since Israel began an intensive campaign of airstrikes against Hamas a week ago.

Bush has generally supported Israeli military actions during his eight years in office, while strongly condemning Hamas, the Lebanese Hezbollah movement and other anti-Israel groups that are considered terrorist organizations by the U.S. government. At the same time, Bush vowed to finalize a Middle East peace plan by the time he left office — a pledge that was abandoned even before the latest violence.

(ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW)

Israel pressed its assault Friday, bombing a mosque it said was used to store weapons and the homes of at least half a dozen Hamas leaders, as Hamas continued to fire rockets into southern Israel. Israel also allowed more than 200 holders of foreign passports to leave Gaza, adding to concerns that a wider air assault or a ground operation was imminent.

Most of the homes of Hamas operatives targeted Friday were apparently empty, although wire services reported that one man was killed in the strikes. On Thursday, Israeli forces bombed the home of Nizar Rayyan, a Hamas cleric who had advocated suicide attacks against Israelis, killing him, his four wives and 11 of his children.

Full article here