Gaza militants continue mortar attacks despite truce (Roundup)

Jun 27, 2008, 13:26 GMT

A Palestinian man in a closed petrol station, because of the fuel shortage, near the Karni cargo crossing between Israel and the Gaza Strip, on the outskirt of Gaza City, 26 June 2008, following a truce between Hamas and the Jewish state. EPA/MOHAMMED SABER

Tel Aviv - A truce of little more than one week in Gaza was further threatened Friday, when Palestinian militants launched projectiles from the Strip for the fourth day running, and Israel responded by keeping goods crossings closed for the third consecutive day.

Two more mortar shells landed in Israel's southern Negev desert, near the border with the Gaza Strip, Friday morning. They followed the firing of one mortar shell into Israel Tuesday, three Gaza-made rockets Wednesday and another rocket on Thursday.

The fire came after an Israeli arrest raid in the northern West Bank city of Nablus Tuesday, which left a senior Islamic Jihad militant and his companion dead.

The Israeli military said the two were killed in an exchange of fire, which erupted when the militant, who it said was planning attacks against Israel, was resisting arrest.

The West Bank is not included in the truce which took effect in Gaza early Thursday last week. But the Islamic Jihad had nevertheless vowed to avenge operations in the West Bank from Gaza as well.

It claimed responsibility for Wednesday's rockets, while the al- Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the armed wing of President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah claimed credit for Thursday's rocket. A spokesman for the Brigades told the Palestinian Ma'an news agency Friday that the attack was a 'message' to Israel that Palestinian militants would not stand idle before Israeli operations.

The radical Islamic Hamas movement ruling Gaza, for its part, urged all Palestinian militant factions operating in the Strip to respect the truce.

Hamas achieved the truce after months of difficult, Egyptian-led indirect negotiations with Israel, which has committed to easing its suffocating blockade of the Strip if attacks from the area at its southern towns and villages end.

Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni reacted angrily to the mortar and rocket attacks of the past few days.

'We went for a truce agreement, while avoiding a wide military operation. If they break the truce, we must respond. I don't care who broke it. We must respond militarily to each violation - and immediately,' she told reporters while meeting her Norwegian counterpart Jonas Gahr Store in Tel Aviv late Thursday.

Israeli Deputy Premier Haim Ramon urged the Israeli cabinet to convene and redebate the truce agreement. Only the Nahal Oz fuel crossing would reopen Friday for several hours, to allow in some industrial diesel and cooking gas, an Israeli Defence Ministry official said.

But the key Sufa and Karni crossings, closed since Wednesday in response to rocket attacks, would remain shut until further notice, Major Peter Lerner told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

He said they may reopen either Saturday or Sunday, if no further rockets were fired from the strip in violation of the truce.

'We are assessing the situation. The problem is the rockets that are being fired from Gaza and this is what is dictating the opening of the crossings,' he said.

The last truck loads humanitarian aid entered the Gaza Strip on Tuesday.

Although Israel has pledged to ease gradually its restrictions on the entry of goods into Gaza if the truce holds, it has made the complete lifting of its closure, including the opening of the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt, conditional on the release of Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier who has been held captive in Gaza for the past two years.

Indirect, Egyptian-mediated negotiations on a prisoners swap between Israel and Hamas that would include Shalit have been stepped up as part of the overall truce deal.

Israeli negotiator Ofer Dekel met Egyptian Intelligence Chief Omar Suleiman in Egypt late Thursday, and submitted a list with the names of 450 Palestinian prisoners whom Israel is willing to release in exchange for the Israeli soldier, the London-based Arabic al-Hayat daily reported Friday.

The 450 names are taken from a list of 1,000 prisoners submitted earlier by Hamas, which is to respond to the Israeli list next week.

According to al-Hayat, Hamas continues to demand the release of a number of hard-core militants as part of the swap, including Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) leader Ahmed Saadat. His group had assassinated an Israeli cabinet minister in October 2001.

Hamas also demands the release of senior Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti, who is serving five life sentences for his indirect involvement in the killing of four Israelis and a Greek Orthodox monk in shootings by militants answering to him. Israel has thus far refused these demands, al-Hayat said.

Israel's cabinet, meanwhile, was scheduled to hold a crucial debate on Sunday on a German-mediated prisoners exchange deal with Lebanon's Hezbollah movement.

An Israeli government spokeswoman said it was still unclear whether the cabinet would also be ready to vote on the deal on Sunday.