Hamas says committed to Gaza truce; rocket fire, closure continues

Nov 21, 2008, 14:00 GMT

Gaza/Tel Aviv - Ismail Haniya, the leader of the Palestinian group Hamas, said Friday his movement remained interested in its informal truce with Israel, which had held for nearly five months, but has been jeopardized by renewed violence over the past two weeks and more.

Israel meanwhile kept up a near-total closure of the Gaza Strip Friday for the 17th consecutive day, as Gaza militants continued their rocket and mortar attacks from the strip, albeit on a smaller scale for the past two days.

Since November 5, Israel has all but completely shut its border crossings with the strip, allowing in only one truck convoy of basic humanitarian supplies this week, and a limited amount of fuel for Gaza's power plant late last week.

Haniya, who continues to serve as the de facto prime minister in Gaza despite his dismissal by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in June 2007 following Hamas' takeover of the strip, said his radical Islamic movement met with other armed factions active in the strip over the past two days, who he said wanted to maintain the truce.

'They had a very clear stand and that is commitment to the calm as long as the Occupation (Israel) is committed to it,' he said after Friday prayers in Gaza City.

'The Occupation is not committed, particularly concerning the closure of the crossings and the siege of Gaza,' he added however.

Israel has vowed to keep its crossings closed to all but essential humanitarian supplies, so long as Gaza militants continue to fire rockets and mortars at it. No other goods nor people, including journalists and diplomats have been allowed entry since at least November 9.

Militants from the strip fired one locally-made rocket toward the Israeli town of Sderot, just north-east of Gaza, on Thursday. They fired another rocket which landed south of the Israeli coastal city of Ashkelon on Friday, as well as two mortar shells at Israeli soldiers patrolling near Israel's border crossing with the southern Gaza Strip of Kissufim, an Israeli military spokesman said.

The armed wings of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP), two radical left-wing factions, claimed responsibility.

Israeli caretaker Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Defence Minister Ehud Barak meanwhile reassured Jordan's King Abdullah in an unannounced meeting held in Amman earlier this week that Israel does not intend to launch a major offensive in the Gaza Strip to bring down the Hamas regime there, the Jerusalem Post reported Friday, quoting Jordanian officials.

Abdullah had called Tuesday's meeting after receiving information according to which Israel was planning a major military operation in the Gaza Strip, not only to stop the rocket attacks, but also to topple the Hamas regime, the officials said.

The Gaza Strip has been split from the West Bank since Hamas violently overpowered security forces loyal to President Abbas of the rival Fatah movement in June 2007. The Gaza takeover was the culmination of a power struggle which had developed since Hamas unexpectedly beat the secular, establishment Fatah movement in January 2006 parliamentary elections.

Egypt has tried to broker new reconciliation talks between the two Palestinian groups, but Hamas called of its attendance following an ongoing arrest campaign against its members in the Abbas-ruled West Bank.

Haniya urged Egypt and other Arab nations to allow his movement to attend the upcoming Arab foreign ministers in Cairo on Wednesday.

'If the Arabs want a balanced picture of what is going on in the Palestinian arena then they should listen to both sides,' he said.

Only Riad Malki, the Palestinian foreign minister of Abbas' Ramallah-based administration, has been invited to the Cairo meeting, while Hamas' de facto foreign minister in Gaza, Mahmoud al-Zahar has not.

While a minority of Arab governments, including Qatar, favour Hamas speaking at the meeting as well, others do not, including Egypt, which reportedly continues to be furious with Hamas for calling off the reconciliation talks that had been scheduled to be held in Cairo earlier this month.

Abbas meanwhile has also threatened to stay away from Wednesday's meeting over Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa's failure to declare Hamas responsible for the failure of the planned Fatah-Hamas dialogue.