- Title: VARIOUS: Palestinian factions agree to truce with Israel-MENA
- Date: 1st May 2008
- Summary: (BN12) RAFAH, GAZA (APRIL 30, 2008) (REUTERS) EXTERIOR OF BUILDING HIT IN AIR STRIKE TWISTED METAL WHERE ROOF OF BUILDING WAS BRICKS ON GROUND
- Embargoed: 16th May 2008 13:00
- Keywords:
- Topics: International Relations
- Reuters ID: LVA1YIO0VCPVHFGI7UTFYEUCOJL
- Story Text: Palestinian factions agree to an Egyptian proposal for a truce with Israel and demand an end to "collective punishment". A spokesman for Israel's prime minister says peace requires the cessation of all rocket attacks from Gaza, as an air strike kills a Palestinian militant.
Palestinian factions meeting in Cairo for talks with Egyptian security officials have agreed to an Egyptian proposal for a truce with Israel starting in the Gaza Strip, state news agency MENA said on Wednesday (April 30).
"All the Palestinian factions have agreed to the Egyptian proposal on a truce with Israel," MENA said, citing an unnamed high-level Egyptian official.
The official said the Egyptian proposal included a "comprehensive, reciprocal and simultaneous truce, implemented in a graduated framework starting in the Gaza Strip and then subsequently moving to the West Bank," MENA added.
"This proposal is a phase of a broader plan that aims at providing an appropriate atmosphere before lifting the blockade and ending the state of Palestinian division," it said.
Egypt invited 12 Palestinian groups for talks to form a consensus on a proposal for a six-month ceasefire, floated by the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas last week.
Although it wants Palestinians to stop firing missiles across the border, Israel has dismissed the offer as a Hamas ploy to gain time to prepare for more fighting.
"We are in favour of the truce, on the condition that it be balanced, reciprocal, equal and comprehensive, to include Gaza and the West Bank as well," Talal Naji of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command told reporters on Wednesday.
"We support the truce on that basis that it be reciprocal, simultaneous and start in Gaza and extend to include the West Bank as soon as possible, but this does not mean we will end the resistance to the Israeli occupation," added Ghazi Hussein of the small group Saiqa.
The Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad said on Tuesday (April 29) it had approved a truce with Israel starting in the Gaza Strip, but reserved the right to respond to Israeli attacks in the West Bank.
Hamas welcomed news of the agreement in Cairo. In Gaza, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh said Palestinian demands to lift the blockade and open border crossings must be met.
"Today with this Palestinian reconciliation under the Egyptian mediation, the ball is in the Israeli court, and the Israelis should stop the aggression, the killing and the collective punishment - and give the region a bit of truce and calm," Haniyeh said.
Mark Regev, a spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, responded that the goal of the Israeli government was to achieve peace in the south of the country.
"That can happen if there is a total cessation of rocket fire from Gaza into Israel, an end to terrorist attacks, and the end to the arms smuggling. If this were to happen tomorrow, we could have peace tomorrow," said Regev.
Israel previously dismissed Hamas's truce offer as a ploy to gain time to prepare for more fighting, but said it would have no reason to attack the Gaza Strip if Palestinians stopped firing missiles across the border.
Israel pulled troops and settlers out of the Gaza Strip in 2005 but still controls its borders and has tightened its restrictions since Hamas seized control there last year.
On Wednesday (April 30) an Israeli missile strike killed a Palestinian militant in Gaza Strip, medical officials said.
Two other militants and a child were wounded in the attack on a metal foundry in the southern town of Rafah.
An Israeli military spokeswoman confirmed the strike on the foundry and said it was used to manufacture weapons, including makeshift rockets launched from the Gaza Strip into southern Israeli towns. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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