June 20, 2008	Friday	Jamadi-us-Sani 15, 1429

GAZA CITY: A fragile truce came into force in the Gaza Strip on Thursday amid scepticism over how long the Egyptian-brokered deal between Israel and the Islamist Hamas movement would hold.

The six-month truce is the first since the Islamists’ takeover of the impoverished Palestinian territory just over a year ago which triggered a crippling Israel blockade.

Underscoring the fragility of the deal, a Palestinian was killed by Israeli fire targeting rocket launchers in Gaza City just minutes before the guns were to fall silent.

“Hamas is determined to respect the truce and guarantee its success,” its spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said after the ceasefire took hold at 0300 GMT.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s spokesman Mark Regev said the Jewish state “will respect all the commitments it made.” The deal also entails a gradual easing of Israel’s blockade of the overcrowded strip of land where most of the 1.5 million population depend on outside aid.

Israeli authorities said this should start on Sunday with an increase of goods allowed into the Palestinian enclave.

The deal was concluded after months of indirect negotiations between Hamas and Israel, which had been mulling a wider military offensive in Gaza in a bid to halt rocket fire.

As the Egyptian-mediated truce went into effect, Olmert’s office announced the premier will travel to Egypt next Tuesday for talks with President Hosni Mubarak.

Israeli negotiator Ofer Dekel is due to fly to Egypt the same day to resume talks on a proposed prisoner swap with Hamas, a senior defence official said.

Israel wants Hamas to release Corporal Gilad Shalit, who was seized by Gaza militants in a deadly cross-border raid two years ago.

“Israel knows it will have to pay a heavy price for Shalit’s release and free many Palestinian terrorists,” the official, who asked not to be named, said.

Israel made it clear the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt, the territory’s only one that bypasses the Jewish state, would be reopened only if Shalit is released, the Ynet news website said.

World leaders welcomed the truce news but Israelis and Palestinians were wary.

“They make agreements and ceasefires here and there all the time. We will wait until we see real results,” said Hatem, a 30-year-old baker in Gaza City.

Just five kilometres away in the Israeli town of Sderot, Micha Hazan, 22, was equally sceptical.

“They won’t stop firing rockets until we send the tanks into Gaza, and even then, I’m not sure they would stop,” said Hazan, as he finished working the night shift at a Sderot cafe.

Olmert warned on Wednesday that the ceasefire would be “fragile” and could be “short-lived,” saying the army stood ready to intervene if it is breached.

And the Yediot Aharonot newspaper quoted deputy prime minister and former army chief Shaul Mofaz as calling it a “capitulation agreement.” Mofaz said the military would eventually be called upon to enter Gaza but that conditions there will be tougher because Hamas will have used the truce to gain strength.Opposition leader and former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the truce was a “grave error”.

The White House cautiously welcomed the deal saying it hoped it meant that Hamas would “give up terrorism.”

UN chief Ban Ki-moon said he hoped it “will both provide security and an easing of the humanitarian crisis in impoverished Gaza, and end rocket and mortar attacks against Israeli targets.” Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas, whose powerbase has been limited to the West Bank since Hamas seized Gaza, hailed the deal as “good news for us”.

Syria, home to Hamas supremo Khaled Meshaal, said it supported the deal while the 22-member Arab League said it would be “an important step towards inter-Palestinian reconciliation.” —AFP