Hamas warned on Thursday that all options were open for the Islamists against Israel after a US conference that revived peace talks and five days in which troops had killed 12 militants in Gaza.
"All options are open to answer any crime, expecially after the Annapolis conference, which gave the Zionists a green light to commit more and more crimes against our people," said a statement from the Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas's armed wing.
Since Sunday, Israeli fire in the Gaza Strip has killed 12 militants, most of them from the Islamist movement that has ruled the territory since violently seizing control in mid-June.
Hamas vigorously opposed the international peace conference in Annapolis, Maryland this week that revived Israeli-Palestinian peace talks after a seven-year freeze and to which the Islamists -- shunned as a terror group in the West -- were not invited.
Hamas also warned the Palestinian leadership against making good on its pledge to implement the roadmap for Middle East peace -- as expressed in a joint statement that the two sides agreed just before the start of the conference on Tuesday.
The first phase of the roadmap -- an international plan that has made next to no progress since its launch in 2003 -- calls for the Palestinians to undertake "visible" steps against militants planning attacks on Israelis.
"It is not acceptable to implement the steps in the first phase of the roadmap, especially if they arrest our mujahedeen or take our weapons," the statement said.
"If this happens, it will mean a declaration of war between us and any side which implements the roadmap steps."
In their joint statement, read out by US President George W. Bush at the start of the Annapolis conference on Tuesday, the Israelis and Palestinians agreed "to immediately implement their respective obligations under the performance-based roadmap."
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