Derailment

"The main problem is the Zionist (Israeli) occupation and continuing aggression against our people," Ismail Haniya [chief candidate of Hamas] told journalists outside his home in Gaza City.

"The first step is not for Hamas," he said when asked what the group's first step would be. "It's for the international community to put strong pressure on Israel to restore our rights and end all the occupation."

"The United States and the European Union must put pressure on the occupation and not on the Palestinian people. We want equality, security and freedom for all the Palestinian people, but this cannot come without the end of the occupation on our land."

Israel pulled out of the Gaza Strip last year, ending a 38-year occupation, but remains in the West Bank and in east Jerusalem, which it also annexed in 1967.

"Hamas will work in two ways. The first way is resistance and self-defence, the second is national dialogue in the Palestinian territories... our fighting is only with the Zionist enemy," Haniya said.

Bye bye peace process...