Jerusalem (CNSNews.com) - Damascus-based Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal, in Moscow for meetings with senior Russian officials, said on Monday he hopes that Russia will help break the international economic boycott against the Palestinian Authority. But Israel said it's a mistake for Russia to even meet with Mashaal.

Russia is a member of the Quartet (along with the U.S., European Union and United Nations) that is leading the Middle East peace effort. The four nations met last week, and reaffirmed their refusal to end the economic boycott against the P.A.

Following the Hamas landslide victory in Palestinian legislative elections last year, the Quartet cut off millions of dollars in financial aid to the Hamas-led P.A. The boycott is supposed to remain in effect until Hamas meets three conditions: recognition of Israel, an end to terrorism, and agreement to abide by previous Israeli-Palestinian agreements.

The U.S. and Israel are backing Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas (of the Fatah faction) as a so-called "moderate" force in the power struggle with Hamas. That support includes the promise of U.S. financial aid for Abbas. Israel has allowed the transfer of weapons to forces loyal to Abbas.

But three weeks ago in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, Abbas and his Fatah faction made a deal with Hamas to form a national unity government, a development that has raised questions about the new government's suitability as a negotiating partner.

The agreement to form a unity government was intended to stop internal Palestinian bloodshed and to break the international boycott against the P.A., but it makes no mention of recognizing Israel or halting terrorism. The agreement only hinted at recognizing previous agreements and it did not say that the new unity government would abide by them.

Hamas, on the State Department's list of terrorist organizations, openly calls for the destruction of Israel and the establishment of a Palestinian Islamic state in its place.

Russia, despite being a member of the Quartet, has backed talks with Hamas. It was the first and only Quartet member last year to invite Mashaal to Moscow for talks after Hamas came to power.

Mashaal's meeting with Russian officials in Moscow apparently came as a surprise to U.S. officials in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. Officials at both the Embassy and Consulate declined any comment on the meeting.

The European Union also had no immediate reaction to the meetings in Moscow.

But in Jerusalem, Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev said that it was a mistake to give an "unreformed Hamas" such acceptance when it had not agreed to the international community's three benchmarks.

"It will not serve the purposes of peace. On the contrary, it strengthens the extremist tendencies within the organization," Regev told Cybercast News Service.

On Monday, Mashaal said in Moscow that Hamas greatly appreciated what he called Russia's "very important" role.

"We hope Russia will be able to persuade the international community to lift the blockade clamped down on the people of Palestine," the Russian Itar-Tass news agency quoted Mashaal as saying.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said last week that Russia wanted to strengthen the Mecca agreements and "to actively help implement them." He also said that negotiations are the way to solve problems.

Lavrov said that Russia's stand was "to encourage the movement to form a new Palestinian government and to strive for an all-embracing peace."

Mashaal said his delegation was planning to discuss the Mecca agreements with Russian officials. The agreements, he said, would contribute to the establishment of a Palestinian state. He also said the Quartet should be negotiating with Israel and not with Hamas because the Palestinians don't have their own state.

This is not the first time that Mashaal has been invited to meet with senior officials in Moscow. A Hamas delegation met with Lavrov and other Russian officials last March following Hamas' election victory.

Terrorism continues

In related news, an Israeli man was found stabbed to death in the West Bank overnight in what Israeli officials are calling a terrorist attack.

Although no Palestinian faction claimed responsibility for the attack, the Bethlehem-based Palestinian news agency Maannews reported that "Palestinian resistance men" had ambushed the Israeli citizen.

On Sunday Israeli troops launched a large-scale anti-terrorist operation in the West Bank city of Nablus.

The army said the operation targeted the "widespread" terrorist infrastructure that is constantly trying to dispatch suicide bombers and perpetrate other attacks against Israel.

Two explosives laboratories have been discovered in the West Bank in recent days, the army said.

Regev called it unfortunate that Israel has to mount such operations to counter what he called a "real and present terrorist threat."

If the P.A. acted to neutralize the terrorist threat as it is obligated to do in various agreements with Israel, "then such Israeli operations would be superfluous," he said.