GAZA CITY, June 16: Palestinian militants ended talks with an Egyptian delegation here Monday with no breakthrough on a ceasefire with Israel but progress in forging a common front toward the US-backed peace process.
Hopes of a truce deal had risen after Palestinian foreign minister Nabil Shaath predicted the radical group Hamas might agree to a “total ceasefire” in the next 48 hours.
But participants emerged from two days of discussions with the Egyptians, capped by a roundtable bringing together all main 13 Palestinian factions, with no reports of major progress.
“The time is not for a truce, the time is for solidarity ... in front of Israeli attacks against our people,” Ismail Abu Shanab, a senior Hamas leader, told reporters after the three-hour meeting Monday.
“We want to show our strength, we want to show our determination and we want to tell the whole world that the Israelis are the terrorists in the region,” Abu Shanab said in English.
“Hamas wants Israel to withdraw the occupation and wants to insist on continuing the resistance,” he added.
Mohammad al-Hindi, a senior leader of the Islamic Jihad movement, said that “in the meeting there was no ceasefire proposal but only ideas within the framework of the Palestinian dialogue to confirm the right to resist occupation.”
Participants said Hamas and Jihad reiterated their willingness to stop suicide attacks inside Israel only if the Israeli army halted its incursions and “targeted killings”.
Ahmad Hellis, secretary general of the Fatah group in the Gaza Strip, said the parties discussed ending “some types of resistance” on condition that Israel halted its “aggression” and released prisoners.
Short of ceasefire talks, the Palestinian factions discussed internal issues and apparently ironed out sharp differences on the pursuit of the 32-month-old intifada.
Hellis said a ceasefire was not on the meeting’s agenda and explained that “if there are international guarantees protecting the Palestinian people and their resistance... it will be possible to reach a ceasefire. Before then there is no need to discuss it.”
HAMAS REACTION: Hamas vowed on Monday to pursue the “resistance” against Israel in defiance of US President George W. Bush’s call for a crackdown on it and other radical groups.
Hamas “vigorously denounces this American position and considers it to be a new attack against our people and against its right to fight occupation,” an unnamed official said in a statement from the group to AFP’s Cairo office.
Hamas also denounced leading US Senator Richard Lugar for saying American forces could be deployed with an international force to rein in attacks by Hamas militants.
However, the Hamas official said “these statements will not frighten us and force us to go back on Jihad (holy war) and resistance or not to work ... to recover our rights and to defend our people against Zionist terrorism.
JACK STRAW: Hamas is trying to blow up the Middle East peace process, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said Monday, calling for an international crackdown on the radical Palestinian group.
“There is no doubt at all that the terrorist group Hamas is literally trying to blow this process to pieces,” he told reporters at a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Luxembourg.
“We are taking firm action in the United Kingdom against Hamas, and now I believe is the time for the whole of the international community including the European Union to take action against a group which has made very clear that it has no interest whatever in being a partner for peace,” he said.—AFP
