Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas on Friday presented the various Palestinian factions with a proposal for a month-long cease-fire with Israel in the Gaza Strip which would later be implemented in the West Bank as well.

Abbas proposed this plan during a meeting with representatives from the five major factions operating the Palestinian Authority, including his own Fatah party and the rival militant Hamas party. The meeting took place amidst a widening Israeli offensive against Hamas targets in efforts to curb Qassam rocket fire on Israel from the Gaza Strip.

A Hamas spokesman said that Hamas is currently studying the proposal. Hamas and other militant groups had previously conditioned ending a two-week-old surge of fighting in and around the Gaza Strip on Israel agreeing to a simultaneous cease-fire in the West Bank. Israel had rejected such calls as a ruse.

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An official privy to talks between the factions and aides to Abbas said they tended to agree to what would effectively be a renewal of a Gaza cease-fire that he and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert declared in November.

"The next 48 hours will be decisive to determine which way the factions are going and it is pending on Israel and whether it wanted to stop its aggression," said the official, who declined to be named given the sensitivity of the negotiations.

"Our position is that a cease-fire must be mutual, simultaneous and reciprocal and it must cover Gaza and the West Bank in the same time," said Hamas spokesman Ayman Taha.

"Despite our position, we have told Abu Mazen [Abbas] that we will study his offer and inform him of our response in the near future," he said.

A Palestinian source told the Palestinian media on Saturday that the faction representatives have made it clear that they would agree to cease firing Qassam rockets at Israel if Israel were to cease its attacks on the Gaza Strip. This stance embodies a turn from previous demands made by the militant factions that for a simultaneous West Bank truce.

Senior government sources in Jerusalem said on Saturday that Israel would not agree to halt its security operations in the West Bank in exchange for an end to Qassam rocket fire. The sources said that Israel must act to prevent Iranian-funded terrorist cells, currently operating the West Bank, from entering Israel and carrying out attacks against its citizens.

Abbas, who said Thursday he is working toward a renewed Israeli-Palestinian cease-fire in Gaza, is tentatively expected to meet with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in early June, an Israeli government source said Thursday.

The two were supposed to have met this past Sunday, but Abbas requested a postponement due to the escalation of violence in the Gaza Strip.

A senior Hamas official however slammed Abbas' cease-fire push on Friday, saying "Abbas hates rockets just like we hate the Jews."

"He does not like resistance and he does not like jihad. He is a man who wants us to surrender ... We won't listen to him," Nizar Rayyan told reporters during a Hamas rally in the Gaza Strip.

Hamas activists in Jabalya refugee camp north of Gaza City Friday also called for the continuation of the Qassam rocket attacks on Israel.

Abbas on Thursday described the ongoing rocket fire on southern Israel, which sparked an Israeli military operation in Gaza, as "pointless and needless."

He said after a meeting with European Union foreign policy czar Javier Solana on Thursday that he is trying to persuade the armed organizations in Gaza to halt the rocket fire "so that we can reach a cease-fire with Israel." Solana urged both sides to halt the violence.

Also this week, Abbas and Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas met in the Gaza Strip in an effort to restore a cease-fire with Israel and the Palestinian observer at the United Nations declared that the UN Security Council should call for an immediate cease-fire in Gaza, as well as consider sending international observers to monitor it.

On Thursday night, however, Hamas vowed to continue the Qassam strikes.

"Rockets will be fired as long as the Zionist aggression against our people continues," said Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri.

Abu Zuhri said Abbas, who also heads the Fatah movement that joined Hamas in a unity government two months ago, did not back "resistance" and has "contradicted the Palestinians' consensus."

Meanwhile, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice plans to visit the region after the expected Olmert-Abbas meeting, and will probably arrive in the second half of June. She is apparently waiting until after the Labor Party leadership primaries Monday, since Israel's domestic political situation will be clearer then.