Hamas officials have condemned the killing of Osama bin Laden. (Their statements are being seized upon by Jackson Diehl in the Washington Post and the Israel Project.) From the Al Qassam website, in Gaza:
The Palestinian Prime Minister in the Gaza government Ismail Haniya denounced on Monday, May 2nd, 2011, the assassination of the Al Qeda spiritual leader Sheikh Osama Bin Laden by the US special forces in the Pakistani city of Abbottabad.
Haniya said during a meeting with reporters and international journalists in his office in Gaza city on Monday afternoon “If these news are true, then this means that its part of the American policy based on the oppression and bloodshed in the Muslim and Arab world.” In his speech for the reporters Haniya mourned Sheikh Osama Bin Laden as an Arab holy warrior.
A friend offered this translation of an Arabic site:
There is more condemnation of Bin-Laden’s assassination from Hamas, now coming from Isma’il al-Ashkar, a Hamas leader and member of the Palestinian parliament. He calls it a “crime,” “state terrorism,” and a “provocation of Islam and the Muslims.” He praised Bin Laden and wished that God will open the doors of paradise for him.
