MIDEAST: Attack kills two Israelis near border between the West Bank and Israel, Israeli official condemns violence, rejects Hamas offer for six month truce

Record ID: 353292

  • Title: MIDEAST: Attack kills two Israelis near border between the West Bank and Israel, Israeli official condemns violence, rejects Hamas offer for six month truce
  • Date: 25th April 2008
  • Summary: (SOUNDBITE) (Hebrew) COMMANDER OF JUDEA AND SAMARIA DIVISION BRIGADIER GENERAL NOAM TIBON SAYING: "Most of the (Palestinian) workers entered by 06:45am (03145gmt), at 7:00am (0400gmt) an apparent lone terrorist arrived, armed with a gun. He fired at the guards who were standing here at the gate, killed two and fled."
  • Embargoed: 10th May 2008 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: War / Fighting,International Relations
  • Reuters ID: LVA93MQAIK2O4T1SLQ1BAHEZPMHV
  • Story Text: A Palestinian gunman killed two Israeli security guards at an industrial zone on the West Bank boundary on Friday (April 25), Israeli military officials said, hours before Israel rejected a Hamas offer for six-month truce with the Jewish state.
    The Israeli army said searches were under way for the assailant in an around the Netzanei Oz industrial zone, across the boundary from the Palestinian-ruled town of Tulkarm.
    "Most of the (Palestinian) workers entered by 06:45am (03145gmt), at 7:00am (0400gmt) an apparent lone terrorist arrived, armed with a gun. He fired at the guards who were standing here at the gate, killed two and fled," said Commander of Judea and Samaria Division, Brigadier General Noam Tibon at the site of the attack.
    There was no immediate claim of responsibility from any armed Palestinian factions.
    "This terror attack was carried out by enemies of peace, by those trying to foil any chance of making progress between Israelis and Palestinians. Israel will continue to take the necessary measures to protect its people," said David Baker, spokesman for the Israeli government in Jerusalem.
    Also on Friday, Israel dismissed a Hamas proposal for a six-month Gaza Strip truce during which an embargo on the territory would be lifted, saying the Palestinian Islamists wanted to prepare for more fighting rather than peace.
    The Hamas offer, issued on Thursday (April 24) following talks with Egyptian mediators, departed from previous demands by the group that any ceasefire apply simultaneously in Gaza and the occupied West Bank, another territory where Palestinians want statehood.
    Israel has been reluctant to enter any formal agreement that could shore up the hardline Islamists against their West Bank-based rival, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, as he pursues U.S.-sponsored peace talks with the Jewish state.
    But Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert signalled flexibility last month by saying military attacks on Gaza would cease if its Hamas rulers stopped cross-border rocket salvoes.
    "Israel is interested in peace. We feel that Hamas is not serious.
    Hamas is trying to buy time in order to re-arm, regroup and get ready for its next offensive against Israel. Israel will continue to take the necessary steps to protect its people," Baker said.
    Hamas, which announced on Thursday that Egyptian mediator Omar Suleiman would discuss the Gaza truce idea with other Palestinian factions next week and then take it up with Israel, was unimpresed by Baker's comments.
    "The Israeli statements regarding Hamas's position for calm is not serious. This position is aimed to blackmail, and to impose the Israeli conditions on the Palestinian people," Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri told Reuters in Gaza.
    "As far as the statements given by the spokesperson of Olmert, that he refuses any agreement between Hamas and the Israeli occupation regarding the calm, Hamas didn't say originally that it wants an agreement with the occupation regarding the calm, because any agreement that is going to be done between the occupation and Egypt will be as part of a total Palestinian-Egyptian agreement. The statements given by the spokesperson of Olmert are false and meaningless," he added.
    Israel pulled troops and settlers out of the Gaza Strip in 2005 but still controls major border crossings and has tightened this cordon since Hamas routed Abbas's forces there in June.
    Some Israeli officials have said the blockade aims both to pressure Hamas to stop rocket fire and, in the long run, to bring about the collapse of its rule over Gaza's 1.5 million Palestinians, most of whom depend on foreign aid.
    But Baker described the closures as a security concern -- raising the possibility of a change in Israeli policy should there be a halt to hostilities by Hamas.
    Hamas's founding charter calls for the destruction of Israel but the group has said it could agree to a long-term truce, perhaps within the framework of a peace deal signed by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
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