CAIRO - A SENIOR Hamas leader said in remarks published on Tuesday that the Palestinian Islamist group might extend a truce with Israel in the Gaza Strip that expired last week.
Mahmud Zahar said in an interview with Egyptian official newspaper Al-Ahram that any extension would depend on Israel's response to an Egyptian-mediated 24-hour period of calm Hamas agreed to in exchange for Egyptian aid.
'The situation will be assessed after the end of (the calm and) firing of rockets for one day. If there are positive developments, there will be an extension,' Al-Ahram quoted him as saying.
Zahar, who is among Hamas's most hardline leaders, said the group would be willing to continue the truce if Israel lifted its blockade of the Gaza Strip and stopped attacks on the impoverished territory.
On Monday, a Hamas official in Gaza warned that the group would resume a suicide bombing campaign in Israel if the Jewish state carried out its threat to invade Gaza.
Tensions have mounted since the expiry on Friday of the six-month truce. -- AFP
