World Bulletin/News Desk

The political leader of Hamas, Khalid Meshaal, has warned in a television interview that Israeli Premier Netanyahu is "playing with fire" and blamed him for being responsible for deaths of five Israelis in an attack on a West Jerusalem synagogue last month.

Meshaal told U.K.-based Sky News in an exclusive interview broadcast on Friday that the Israeli-Palestinian crisis "will lead to chaos" and create a "bloodbath" in the region if it remains unsolved.

 He added: "We warn against keeping the Palestinian issue without a solution and stripping the Palestinian people of hope."

Talking about the recent attacks which shook Jerusalem and tensions over the Al-Aqsa Mosque, Meshaal accused the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the rise of violence.

He said: "For every action there’s a reaction.

"The action of the occupation targeting the Islamic and the Christian Holy sites in Jerusalem and Palestine, and specifically the Al Aqsa Mosque, brings about the angry Palestinian reaction."

'National fight'

He went on: "Netanyahu is playing with fire when he allows members of his government, the Knesset, and the extremists to repeatedly storm the Al Aqsa mosque - that's dangerous."

"Our fight is a national fight, but Netanyahu is turning it into a religious fight. He bears responsibility for the consequences of what is happening."

He said Hamas was committed to reconciliation with the Fatah  group which comprises President Mahmoud Abbas' government, saying it was a national necessity.

He also welcomed the symbolic vote which took place in the British Parliament in support of recognizing a Palestinian state, stating "Palestinian's appreciated the move and described it as an "excellent development".

Anti-settlement protesters in W. Bank

Meanwhile, scores of Palestinians on Friday suffered temporary asphyxiation when Israeli army troops used teargas to disperse anti-settlement demonstrations in the West Bank, a Palestinian NGO has said.

Israeli forces fired stun grenades and teargas to disperse Palestinians protesting the construction of Jewish-only settlements on Palestinian land and Israel's "separation wall," the Popular Resistance Committee said in a statement.

There has been no comment by Israeli authorities on the report.

Palestinians stage weekly protests on Friday against ongoing Israeli settlement building and the separation wall, which snakes across the occupied West Bank, isolating large swathes of Palestinian territory.

The weekly rallies are typically dispersed by force by the Israeli army.

According to the Palestinian government in Ramallah, the separation wall effectively cuts some 50,000 Palestinian residents of occupied East Jerusalem off from the city center.