JERUSALEM, April 5: Israel reacted sceptically on Wednesday to an unprecedented Middle East peace overture from Hamas foreign minister Mahmud Al-Zahar to UN chief Kofi Annan, seeing no change in Hamas’s refusal to recognize the Jewish state and accusing it of playing games.

“In this letter, the Palestinian foreign minister talks about cooperation and peace in the region, but unfortunately he talks of the region without Israel,” foreign ministry spokesman Mark Regev said.

“In no part of this letter does he mention the existence of Israel. He talks about a map of the region without a map of Israel,” he added.

By mentioning a two-state solution to the Middle East conflict, as advocated by the international community, the letter appeared to implicitly recognize for the first time Israel’s right to exist.

“Israeli procedures in the occupied territories will put an end to all hopes to reach a final settlement based on the two-state solution,” it said.

The charter of Hamas, behind dozens of suicide bombings in the course of a five-year uprising, is committed to the destruction of the Jewish state.

Hamas has rejected the roadmap peace plan, which targets a two-state solution to the conflict and was drawn up by the quartet of the European Union, Russia, the United Nations and United States.

Israeli Nobel peace laureate Shimon Peres, a leading member of the governing Kadima party, held out little hope of peace talks with Hamas.

—AFP