Al-Quds: Hamas seeking truce, stop to rocket fire - Haaretz

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Mon., December 10, 2007 Tevet 1, 5768

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Al-Quds: Hamas seeking truce, stop to rocket fire

By Avi Issacharoff

Tags: Al-Quds, Hamas

The Israel Defense Forces on Friday killed a Palestinian man in the Gaza Strip and wounded another, Palestinian sources reported. Meanwhile, the London-based Arabic daily Al-Quds Al-Arabi reported yesterday that Hamas is seeking a truce with Israel.

Sources said Bajat Abu Daka, 27, was shot to death by IDF soldiers while working the land near his home in the village of Hiza'a near Khan Yunis.

According to the Al-Quds report, senior Hamas officials have been trying recently to persuade its military wing to stop firing Qassams at Israel to prevent a large-scale Israeli military strike on the Strip. The paper also reported that the leader of Hamas' political wing in Damascus, Khaled Meshal, met recently with the secretary-general of the Islamic Jihad in Lebanon to discuss the matter, and that the Islamic Jihad had approved the move in principle, but conditioned it on Israel's agreement that the cease-fire be mutual. The report said senior officials in Egypt had offered to mediate the deal.

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Palestinian sources told Haaretz that the intention was to unilaterally initiate a month-long cease-fire with as a test, among other things in honor of the Id al-Adha holiday. "Hamas has tried in the past to reach a cease-fire with Israel," Salah al-Bardawil, a Hamas parliament member told Haaretz, "but we reached a dead end in light of Israel's actions and the killing of dozens of Palestinians. However if both sides would commit to the cease-fire, there would be no problem with it."

Al-Bardawil added that without an Israeli pledge to observe the cease-fire, "there is no point," and also said "I think there is no problem with the Palestinian side. All the organizations agree, but within Israel there is still no agreement about a cease-fire."

Meanwhile, Hamas yesterday denied a report by the London daily Asharq Al-Awsat that the organization intended to give Israel a video of kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit in return for the passage of 2,000 Muslim pilgrims to Mecca and Medina by way of the Rafah crossing.

Last week, Egypt allowed Palestinians to travel to Saudi Arabia via Sinai, contrary to the Israeli stand and that of the Palestinian Authority government in Ramallah. Various Fatah officials had spread rumors in recent weeks that Egypt had agreed to the passage of the pilgrims in conjunction with a deal to release Shalit.

In other news, the IDF on Friday arrested two Palestinian camera men working for Reuters and AP during a protest against the separation fence near the village of Umm Salamuna near Bethlehem.

The two, Mohammed Abu Ghania of Reuters and Iyad Hamed of AP, were filming the demonstration from a distance. According to Abu Ghania, soldiers and police approached them without warning and announced they were under arrest for breaking an order banning them from entering a closed military zone.

"We did not know the area had been defined as closed and we were not asked to leave beforehand," Abu Ghania told Haaretz.

"From there were were taken for questioning to the Gush Etzion junction station where we heard for the first time that we were being accused of disrupting the security forces and attacking them. We were not even close to the police or the soldiers when we were filming," he said.

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