A leader of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah movement warned on Thursday that the international peace conference will fail if Israel unleashed a large-scale offensive into Gaza.
Qadoura Fares, member of Fatah central committee, told reporters that "any invasion of the Gaza Strip practically means the collapse of the idea of the conference which the U.S. administration seeks to hold in November."
Israel's toughest operations against Gaza, starting Wednesday afternoon, have left 12 people killed, most of them militants, according to Fares.
He warned that the Palestinians would not participate in the conference to revive the peace process if Gaza operation was the beginning of a wider invasion.
"The results of the invasion will not enable the Palestinians to go to the conference," Fares said. "Any such operations will thwart all the efforts that are meant to pave the way for the conference."
Fares said he believed the fresh offensive in Gaza was a bid by the Israeli government "to restore its dignity before its people by telling them it is capable of protecting the Israelis from the Palestinian resistance rockets."
On July 16, U.S. President George W. Bush proposed to hold the international conference, which would include Israel, the Palestinians and some neighboring Arab states, to help resume the stalled Middle East peace talks.
Source: Xinhua
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