GAZA, (PIC)-- The Hamas Movement stated Tuesday that the Israeli decision to close the Gaza crossings is a violation of the truce agreement and aimed to blackmail the Palestinian factions and the Palestinian people, adding that this decision is crippling to Egypt's role.

In a statement, Fawzi Barhoum, a Hamas spokesman, said that this was a clear retreat by the Israeli occupation from the calm agreement and fully in line with what was stated Monday by Israeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni that the opening of the crossings was conditional on the release of captive soldier Gilad Shalit.
 
Barhoum underlined that Hamas along with the Palestinian factions will mull over these developments and the daily Israeli violations, the latest of which was when IOF troops wounded seriously a Palestinian woman called Aisha Attaya.

The Israeli government announced its intention to close the Gaza crossings today at the pretext that a Palestinian rocket had landed Monday on the Sderot settlement located in the Palestinian lands occupied 1948.

In a new development, a commander of Al-Quds Brigades, the armed wing of the Islamic Jihad Movement, called Ala'a Abulrab survived at dawn Tuesday an attempted assassination carried out by an Israeli special force which ambushed him in the eastern cemetery of Nablus.

Immediately after the failure of the assassination, a large number of IOF troops boarding military armored vehicles stormed the city amid intensive gunfire and bombardment and embarked on breaking into and ransacking houses before withdrawal.

A senior Islamic Jihad source had said Monday that the PA security apparatuses in Jenin stormed a house in the Masjid area in an attempt to arrest the Islamic Jihad commander Abulrab, but he skillfully escaped.