DAMASCUS, Sept 25: A Damascus-based leader of the Hamas vowed on Wednesday suicide attacks against Israel would continue, saying his movement did not fear a retaliatory offensive on the Gaza Strip.

“The intifada and the resistance in all their forms will continue, including martyrdom operations that are a legitimate right of the Palestinian people,” said Khaled Meshaal, head of Hamas’ political bureau, at a press conference.

He added Hamas “does not fear” an Israeli retaliation against the Gaza Strip where the movement’s headquarters are located.

“The situation in Gaza will be no different than in the West Bank — the Palestinians will suffer large losses but the enemy will also pay dearly,” he said.

Israeli Prime Minister “Ariel Sharon can threaten the Palestinians as he wishes, continue to murder and expel them, but he cannot stop the resistance,” Meshaal added, in the company of representatives from 10 different Palestinian movements with offices in Damascus.

“We are being vigilant, but the battle (with Israel) has opened, and will end with the victory of the Palestinian people,” Meshaal added.

“We are certain the resistance will lead to the realization of our national goals.”

Meshaal denounced US calls for an ouster of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, but defended Hamas’ decision to follow a different strategy than the Palestinian Authority, which has called for an end to attacks against Israeli civilians.

“We are opposed to the Palestinian Authority ... and believe that the resistance forces should choose their own representatives,” he said.

Meshaal finally denounced “rumors and reports concerning Syrian pressure on Hamas.”

“All these reports of of pressure on the movements that Syria is hosting on its land are false,” he said.

The United States has pressured Syria to rein in Palestinian militant groups, with US President George W. Bush saying in his key Middle East policy speech on June 24 that Syria should “choose the right side in the war on terror by closing terrorist camps and expelling terrorist organizations”.

Meshaal stressed that “Syria hosts and supports Palestinian resistance movements.”

A senior Hamas official called Sunday in the Gaza Strip for an intensification of the two-year-old uprising in response to the Israeli army’s encirclement of Arafat in his battered West Bank headquarters.

ISRAELI FIRING: Israeli troops shot and wounded about 20 Palestinian youths, two of them seriously, in a string of incidents in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, Palestinian security and hospital sources said.