Mahmoud Zahar, Hamas’s senior leader in Gaza, disclosed the full extent of the group’s ambitions in a rare interview. He confirmed that it will contest seats in Palestinian Legislative Council elections in the same month that Israel withdraws from Gaza, and join the Cabinet if it wins.

He made clear that Hamas intends to claim Israel’s withdrawal as a retreat under fire and victory for its campaign of violence. This is exactly the image that Ariel Sharon, the Israeli Prime Minister, is determined to avoid, knowing that it will be seized upon by his right-wing critics, who accuse him of handing the Palestinians a “dividend for terror”.

Speaking at a secret location in the Gaza Strip, Dr Zahar, 60, told The Times: “Very simply, nobody can deny that if Israel is going to leave the Gaza Strip and part of the West Bank, that was because of the intifada, because of the armed struggle, because of the big sacrifices of Hamas for this goal. It was not because of negotiations, or the goodwill of Israel, or the Americans or Europeans.”

Ominously, he refused to commit Hamas to peace in Gaza once Israel withdraws its 9,000 settlers. “It depends on what Israel does,” he said. “Now Israel is talking about reorganisation. We do not accept reorganisation. We are looking for withdrawal, real withdrawal, and not to violate our sovereignty.

“If they are going to be at the gates between Gaza and Egypt, or going to control our sea border, and if they are going to attack our houses by their helicopters or F16s, will that satisfy the people who have sacrificed?” Dr Zahar, a thyroid surgeon and former personal physician to Hamas’s former spiritual leader, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, is widely believed to have assumed Hamas’s internal leadership after Israel assassinated Sheikh Yassin, a wheelchair user, and his successor Abdel-Aziz al-Rantissi, within a month of each other last year.

Hamas, which has been decreed a terrorist organisation by the United States and Israel, has benefited from a power struggle within Mr Abbas’s troubled Fatah movement.

After boycotting the last parliamentary elections in 1996, the Islamists now pose a serious threat to Fatah, the spearhead of secular Palestinian nationalism. Mr Abbas won the presidential election in January with such a large majority only because Hamas did not contest the ballot, a free run that Fatah will not be granted in July.

Last month a poll for the Palestinian Centre for Policy and Survey Research recorded Fatah support at 36 per cent, down from 40 per cent in December. Support for Hamas had increased from 18 per cent to 25 per cent, with 33 per cent in its Gaza stronghold.

Dr Zahar said that polls underestimated Hamas’s support when it won seven of the nine municipal elections it contested this year. “It may be 25 per cent, it may be 50 per cent, it may be more than that,” he said. “Nobody can tell, because this is the first time we are going to participate in political elections.

“We have three options: either to be the majority and to ask others to participate according to our programme; second, to be a minority and participate in government; or to be a strong political opponent in the parliament. If we are a majority, we are going to establish the government, or will form the Cabinet.

“Our goal is to reform and reconstruct buildings, to replant trees, to flourish our people economically, to keep the mood of the Palestinian people anti-occupation, to move towards a new strategy: co-operation with the Arabs, not co-operation with the Israelis,” Dr Zahar said.

Well aware of anger among Palestinians at corruption and cronyism in Fatah, he confirmed that there were some within the Arafat “old guard” with whom Hamas will not work. Asked whom in Fatah he did not trust, he gave a rare public flash of Islamist humour. “The question should be, who is there that we trust? “There are many names, but it’s not our intention now and it’s not our style to speak about figures in their absence. At that time, we are going to discuss it internally with the people representing Fatah.”

But Hamas has itself been tainted by allegations of brutality and vigilantism in recent days, after a group of its gunmen shot dead an unmarried 20-year-old woman in Gaza.

The murder outraged the victim’s family, who accuse the killers of punishing the Beit Lahiya woman for “immoral behaviour” because she enjoyed an afternoon on the beach with her fiancé. Hamas admitted that her killing was a mistake.

HAMAS

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