Iran calls for attacks on Israel

NICOSIA — Iran continues to call for an intensification of attacks on Israel.

Iranian leaders have urged Hamas to attack Israeli targets both in the Palestinian territories as well as inside the Jewish state.

"The only solution to the current conflict is to continue the holy war against the enemies of Islam, and that will not stop," Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei told Hamas leaders in Tehran. "The uprising continues. It will not stop at anything -- not at threats, not at bullets."

Later, Hamas politburo chief Khaled Mashaal called for strikes against Israeli interests abroad. "Before the 1987 uprising, Israel would not even recognize the Palestinian nation," Mashaal said. "This shows we have no option but armed struggle. Lebanon was not liberated from Israeli occupation by negotiations but by war."

Militants close to Khamenei have urged the Palestinians and their supporters to adopt the Hizbullah guerrilla tactics that they said led to the May 24 Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon.

"Yesterday, it was Lebanon's turn. Today it is that of the resistant Palestinian nation," a statement by the Islamic Revolutionary Republican Guard said.

In Beirut, Palestinian and Shi'ite leaders met to plan strategy amid the miniwar in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The meeting was headed by Hizbullah chief Hassan Nasrallah and Popular Front of the Liberation of Palestine-General Command leader Ahmed Jibril.

"We discussed ways to support and help the Palestinian people in their intifadah and in their confrontation with the Zionist instrument of destruction, savagery, and murder," Jibril said. "We are sure that our brothers in Hizbullah represent an important backing for the causes of Palestine, Jerusalem, and the Al Aksa mosque."

On Wednesday, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was quoted as urging Arab neighbors of Israel to allow him to destroy the Jewish state. Saddam told a delegation of Iraqi academics that his forces could destroy Israel in a short period of time.

"Let them [Arab leaders] just give us a piece of land near Israel, stay away and support us," Saddam was quoted as saying. "And they will see how we will put an end to Zionism."