CAIRO, Dec 5: Several radical Palestinian factions on Friday rejected an Egyptian proposal for a year-long halt to attacks on Israelis amid efforts to secure a ceasefire and restart peace talks, a participant said.

“Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) are opposed to a year-long truce because they believe that Israel is offering nothing in return and is not intending to,” the delegate said.

The three groups are among a dozen Palestinian factions who have since Thursday been attending Egyptian-sponsored talks aimed at reviving peace talks.

“These groups are ready to study the possibility of sparing civilians on condition of obtaining guarantees from the Quartet that Israel will stop its attacks against the Palestinian people,” the source said.

The talks here are designed to clinch a ceasefire with Israel and revive the roadmap for peace drafted by the Quartet of the United States, United Nations, European Union and Russia.

The plan sets out steps both sides must take toward creating by 2005 a Palestinian state that lives peacefully alongside Israel.

In the meantime, left-wing Israelis and prominent Palestinians have drafted the Geveva Initiative, an unofficial peace plan rejected by the Israeli government.

However, a delegate said the Palestinian factions “unanimously condemned and rejected” the initiative mainly for failing to guarantee the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes.

The initiative was launched in Geneva on Monday by former Israeli justice minister Yossi Beilin and former Palestinian information minister Yasser Abed Rabbo, who is close to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

Leading Hamas member Mohamed Nazzal, who spoke on the Arabic television station Al Jazeera from Cairo, said that “we cannot speak of a truce as long as the (Israeli) enemy has not stopped its attacks.

“Speaking of a truce is illogical. The enemy must stop its aggression first, then afterward we can speak of a truce,” he said on television.

Abu Ahmed Fuad, a PFLP delegate, said a committee was created on Friday to draft a plan of action to be published when the meetings end on Sunday.

His delegation “demanded the release of PFLP secretary general Ahmed Saadat”, who has been jailed in the West Bank town of Jericho since May last year under international guard, as well as the head of the Palestine Liberation Front, Mohamad Zeidan, also known as Abu Abbas, who is being detained by US forces in Iraq.

“We entered into the heart of the matter this morning by studying proposals to conclude a year-long truce,” according to Sakher Bessissou, a member of the delegation of Mr Arafat’s Fatah faction.

This truce “will give impetus to the Palestinian cause and help put it back to the top of the international priority list in order to revive the peace process”, he said.

Fatah supports a year-long truce as necessary for new Palestinian prime minister Ahmed Qorei to try to revive peace negotiations with Israel. —AFP