JPost.Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said Thursday from Moscow...

Erekat: Negotiations with Israel impossible as long as raids go on
By Haaretz Service and News Agencies

Negotiations with Israel are impossible as long as the Israel Defense Forces continues its raids on the Gaza Strip, Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat said on Thursday, according to Israel Radio. Erekat's comments came after two days of heavy violence between Israel and the Gaza Strip. Israel Air Force attacks have killed at least 23 Palestinians since Tuesday and militants in Gaza have fired more than 70 rockets at the western Negev.
Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said Thursday from Moscow, where she arrived Wednesday for talks with Russian officials, that the IDF would continue its offensive in response to the ongoing rocket attacks from Gaza.
"Israel is obligated to give its citizens a response to the daily attacks coming from the Gaza Strip," she said. "The answer is unbridled war on terror. When we speak of a Palestinian state that includes both Gaza and the West Bank, it must be clear that the situation in Gaza needs to change."
In Jordan on Thursday, parliament's lower house denounced the continuous IDF attacks on the Palestinian territories, the official Petra news agency reported.
A senior Hamas official warned on Wednesday that the ongoing Israel Defense Forces raids on the Gaza Strip could turn negotiations over the release of abducted soldier Gilad Shalit into "a Ron Arad affair".
The warning was in reference to the Israel Air Force navigator who has been missing in action since his plane went down over Lebanon in 1986. In an interview aired on Channel 1, Hamas official Ismail El-Muzeini, who is overseeing the Shalit matter for the group, said that if the raids continued, Hamas would cut off all contacts with Israel over the release of Shalit, who the group has been holding captive since 2006.
Earlier Wednesday, Hamas' exiled leader Khaled Meshal that IDF raids on Gaza would hurt chances of the Palestinian militant group releasing Shalit. Meshal told reporters that recent IDF operations in the coastal strip also made Hamas less likely to negotiate any truce with Israel. Speaking to Israeli leaders, Meshal said: "What you are doing will deny you of any plan you could be betting on: No exchange for Gilad Shalit and no truce."
haaretz.com