Isreal's killings of Hamas leaders don't help ease the Middle East tension, Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said Sunday.

He was commenting on the assassinations of the hardline Palestinian movement hamas leaders of Ahmed Yassin and Abdel-Aziz al-Rantissi in the past few weeks.

"This isn't going to do anything to ease the tension. This is only going to inflame Palestinian opinion," Downer told local Channel Seven TV.

The foreign minister also condemned Hamas for killing innocent Israelis. But, it is still "unwise to be assassinating, successively, the leaders of Hamas. It's likely to inflame," he said.

Source: Xinhua