Egypt downplays reports of mediation between Hamas and Israel

Dec 22, 2008, 12:44 GMT

Cairo - Egypt on Monday downplayed media reports that it was brokering mediation talks between the Palestinian Hamas movement and Israel, saying it could do little without commitment from the parties themselves.

'The ability to destroy is greater than the ability to construct, when one party wants positive reconciliation, its ability is much weaker compared to the party that wants to disrupt these efforts,' said Foreign Ministry spokesman Hossam Zaki.

The London-based al-Hayat newspaper reported on Monday that Egypt was exerting efforts to 'spread calm' in the Gaza Strip.

A six-month Egyptian-brokered truce between Israel and the Palestinian militant organizations in the Gaza Strip came to an end Friday, leading to a surge of missile attacks on southern Israeli towns and villages. That was matched by Israeli airstrikes on rocket- launching squads.

By Monday afternoon, only two mortar shells had been launched from the Strip, compared to 27 rockets and mortars on Sunday.

According to a senior Hamas official, Egyptian officials contacted Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip, earlier on Monday to allow fuel and food into the Gaza Strip and asked the radical Islamist movement to stop attacks for 24 hours. Hamas accepted the Egyptian request, Ayman Taha said.

Relations between Cairo and Hamas have reportedly been icy in recent weeks, with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak angry with Hamas because it embarrassed him by abandoning Egyptian-hosted reconciliation talks with President Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah late this year.

Those talks between the two rival Palestinian camps had been scheduled to take place in Cairo in early November but were cancelled at the last minute after Hamas announced it was boycotting them.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's spokesman, Mark Regev, declined to comment on the al-Hayat report.

'You have to ask the Egyptians that question,' he said.

But a senior Israeli government official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said he had information contradicting the report and saying that all contacts between Cairo and Hamas were currently frozen.

He said the Israeli defence ministry and prime minister's office currently believed it was therefore impossible to rely on any mediation from the Egyptian side.

'It's not in conformity with the information we have,' the official told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.