(updates with Hamas demands) GAZA, Dec 31 (Reuters) - Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh said on Wednesday Israeli attacks on Gaza had to stop before any truce proposals could be considered. "First, the Zionist aggression must end without any conditions...Second the siege must be lifted and all the crossings must be opened because the siege is the source of all of Gaza's problems," he said in a televised speech to Palestinians. "After that it will be possible to talk on all issues without any exception," Haniyeh said, referring to recent truce proposals raised by all parties, including Israel. Haniyeh was speaking from undisclosed location in the Gaza Strip, home to 1.5 million Palestinians, which has suffered the deadliest Israeli attacks in the past four decades in which at least 394 Palestinians have been killed. Haniyeh sounded a defiant tone, saying the Islamist group that controls the Gaza Strip will win the fight against Israel. "We tell the Palestinian people in Gaza and everywhere that you will win, inevitably. Victory is near, God willing, and it is closer than people think," Haniyeh said. Palestinian militants have launched some 400 rockets into Israel, largely bringing daily life to a standstill for about half a million people in the southern part of the country. Four Israelis have been killed in the rocket fire. The current violence erupted after a six-month ceasefire brokered by Egypt expired on Dec. 19 and Hamas intensified rocket attacks from the Israeli-blockaded Gaza Strip. In his speech, Haniyeh said: "What is happening in Gaza is not normal aggression, it is a real war, a war without morals, with neither principles nor laws. "It is a war of elimination against the Palestinian people in Gaza Strip." (Reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi, Writing by Ori Lewis; Editing by Philippa Fletcher)
Israel's Defence Minister Ehud Barak surveys a damaged classroom after a rocket landed in a school in the southern city of Beersheba December 31, 2008. Israel on Wednesday said the time ...
