GAZA: HAMAS RENEWS COMMITMENT TO TRUCE WITH ISRAEL/ DOZENS OF PROTESTERS OPPOSING ISRAEL'S ORDER TO SEAL OFF JEWISH SETTLEMENTS SCUFFLE WITH SECURITY FORCES AT KISSUFIM CROSSING

Record ID: 400927

  • Title: GAZA: HAMAS RENEWS COMMITMENT TO TRUCE WITH ISRAEL/ DOZENS OF PROTESTERS OPPOSING ISRAEL'S ORDER TO SEAL OFF JEWISH SETTLEMENTS SCUFFLE WITH SECURITY FORCES AT KISSUFIM CROSSING
  • Date: 17th July 2005
  • Summary: (W4) GAZA CITY, GAZA STRIP (JULY 17, 2005) (REUTERS) 1. EXTERIOR OF GAZA HOTEL WHERE HAMAS LEADERS HELD TALKS WITH EGYPTIAN OFFICIALS 0.03 2. SECURITY OUTSIDE MEETING ROOM 0.09 3. VARIOUS OF EGYPTIAN OFFICIALS SHAKING HANDS, KISSING WITH HAMAS LEADERS (2 SHOTS) 0.38 4. HAMAS LEADER SAEED SEYAM WALKING TO NEWS CONFERENCE 0.44
  • Embargoed: 1st August 2005 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: GAZA CITY AND KISSUFIM CROSSING, GAZA STRIP
  • City:
  • Country: Palestinian Territories
  • Reuters ID: LVA134D0B24DTB5PDRY8SKC77FU4
  • Story Text: Hamas renews commitment to truce with Israel.



    A leader of the Hamas militant group in Gaza renewed
    a commitment on Sunday (July 17) to a five-month-old truce
    deal but vowed to continue to "respond" to Israeli violence.

    The pledge came after Hamas leaders held talks with
    Egyptian officials.

    "We are committed to the Cairo understandings," Saeed
    Seyam, political leader of the group sworn to Israel's
    destruction, told reporters regarding a deal forged with
    Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to support a ceasefire
    with Israel.

    "We are committed to a conditional calm," he said, but
    added "We reiterate the right of our people to resistance
    and self-defence and our right to respond to Israeli
    attacks on our people."
    Earlier on Sunday the Egyptian delegation met with
    Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and other leaders of
    the Palestinian Authority in a bid to prevent the renewal
    of fighting between Islamic militants and Palestinian
    security forces and to return to a truce seen as key to
    securing an orderly Israeli withdrawal from Gaza as planned
    next month.

    Violence has escalated in Gaza since Hamas fired a
    rocket that killed a woman in southern Israel on Thursday
    followed by repeated barrages of mortars and rockets on
    Jewish settlements in Gaza and Israel through the weekend.

    The rockets came in response to Israeli raids in
    occupied territory against Islamic Jihad, a group that
    claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing that killed
    five Israelis in the central city of Netanya last Tuesday.

    Israel has killed at least 10 Palestinians in air raids
    and shootings in the West Bank and Gaza since the Netanya
    bombing.

    Meanwhile, dozens of protesters opposing Israel's order
    to seal off Jewish settlements in Gaza scuffled with
    security forces at Kissufim crossing for a second night on
    Sunday (July 17).

    Settler youths sat down on the road leading from Israel
    to the Gush katif settlement bloc in the Gaza Strip to
    protest Israel's denial of entry to settlers supporters
    planning a mass march against the pullback.

    Police restrained two demonstrators and exchanged
    punches with protesters, some of whom harangued the troops
    with shouts of "Jews don't deport Jews" and calls to
    violate orders to remove them from land they see as a
    biblical birthright.

    Israel sealed off all Jewish settlements in the
    occupied Gaza Strip on Wednesday (July 13) to choke
    resistance to a planned withdrawal from the territory in
    mid-August.

    The protest came a night ahead of a planned three-days
    march from the southern Israeli town of Netivot to Gaza,
    which settlers leaders say will include tens of thousands
    of protesters to try to foil the planned pullout from the
    territory next month.
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