Palestinian terror groups may call truce
Palestinian terror groups held out the prospect of a truce today as the Israeli and Palestinian prime ministers prepared to take another step on the road map to peace.
Hamas and Islamic Jihad said they would halt attacks in return for an agreement that the Israeli army would stop its campaign against them.
Israelis have previously rejected the idea of a ceasefire that would leave their settlers and troops open to attack in the West Bank and Gaza. But today’s comments by the militants added to the momentum that is hoped will culminate in a three-way summit with US President George Bush next week.
Tonight’s second round of talks in Jerusalem between Israeli premier Ariel Sharon and his Palestinian counterpart Mahmoud Abbas were expected to focus on the offers by Hamas and Islamic Jihad – two groups that have carried out scores of suicide attacks against Israeli civilians and soldiers.
Abbas is obliged to rein in the militants as a crucial part of the first phase of the US-backed road map to Mideast peace, aimed at ending 32 months of violence.
He met Hamas leaders last week, but no conclusions were reached. Today’s offers appeared to fall short of Israeli demands that the militants be disarmed and arrested.
The issue could take centre stage when the two leaders meet Bush in the Jordanian Red Sea port of Aqaba on Wednesday.
Tonight’s meeting is the second in two weeks for the two prime ministers to discuss the three phase, three year blueprint for ending the bloodshed and creating a Palestinian state.
The first phase begins with statements from the Israelis and Palestinians renouncing violence and recognising each other’s rights to security and statehood.
The road map calls on parallel steps by the two sides, but Israel has demanded a crackdown on militants before the rest of the plan is implemented.
Islamic Jihad leader Abdulla Shami said today that his group was willing to consider an indefinite ceasefire “if the enemy is committed to not targeting our people ... as well as releasing Palestinian prisoners.”
He said his group would not give up its weapons prior to concluding peace negotiations with Israel.
Hamas official Abdel Aziz Rantisi said his organisation might be willing to go along with a ceasefire if Israel calls off its military operations against the Palestinians.
“Then Hamas is ready to halt targeting the Israeli civilians and limit the resistance against the soldiers and settlers inside the occupied lands,” he said, indicating that Hamas might scale back attacks against Israeli soldiers and settlers in the West Bank and Gaza – a key Israeli demand.
Abbas said Hamas “will undertake to stop terrorism both inside the Green Line and in the territories,” a reference to both Israel and the West Bank and Gaza. “They have overall responsibility towards the Palestinian people’s fate,” he said.
But there seemed to be confusion over the offer within Hamas.
One senior Hamas leader in the Gaza Strip, Mahmoud Alzahar, told Israel Radio the group was considering a ceasefire with no conditions.
But another senior Hamas leader in Gaza, Ismail Abu Shanab, later outlined three conditions for a truce: that Israel stop operations against the Palestinians, free Palestinian prisoners, and withdraw from the West Bank and Gaza.
The al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a militant group affiliated with the Fatah faction of President Yasser Arafat and Abbas, issued a statement which also cast a shadow on peace efforts.
It said: “We reject the road map to hell and any ceasefire until the rights of the Palestinian people are restored without condition.”
Israeli military operations against the militants continued today.
Troops moved into the West Bank city of Jenin and killed an Islamic Jihad member during an exchange of gunfire, Palestinian witnesses and the army said.
In the southern Gaza town of Khan Younis, Israeli troops shot dead a Hamas member as he tried to escape from a raid, relatives said.
