GAZA, June 15: The Hamas government wants a ceasefire with Israel and is willing to ask Palestinian militants to stop firing rockets from Gaza into the Jewish state, a spokesman said on Thursday.
But Ghazi Hamad said Israel had to first stop military activity in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. The Islamic militant group scrapped a 16-month truce with Israel last Friday and soon after launched a barrage of makeshift rockets at the Jewish state from Gaza.
“I spoke today with the prime minister and he said we definitely want quiet everywhere. We are interested in a ceasefire everywhere,” Hamad, speaking in Hebrew, said in an interview on Israel Radio.
Reached by Reuters, Hamad said the offer was conditional.
“We are ready to launch discussions with factions over stopping rocket firing but only if there is an Israeli commitment to cease all military attacks against all Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.”
Hamad’s remarks followed a sharp drop in militant rocket fire from the Gaza Strip.
Earlier this week a senior member of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s party threatened Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas with assassination if the group resumed suicide bombings in Israel. Israeli officials were not available to comment.
Army Radio reported four rockets hit the Israeli town of Sderot, near Gaza, on Thursday. That compares to 30 to 40 rockets launched daily just after Hamas ended its truce.
Medics said two people were lightly wounded in the latest rocket attacks, which were claimed by the Islamic Jihad group. Hamas broke its ceasefire after seven Palestinians were killed on a Gaza beach in a blast militants said was caused by Israeli shellfire. Israel has said an investigation has shown its forces were not to blame.—
The Islamists carried out nearly 60 suicide bombings in Israel after the start of a Palestinian uprising in 2000 but halted such attacks in mid-2004 and had largely abided by a ceasefire reached in early 2005.
Hamas took over the government in March after beating President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah movement in elections.—Reuters
