RAMALLAH, July 24: A senior Palestinian official on Wednesday accused Israel of launching its bloody air raid in Gaza City to thwart a Palestinian bid to negotiate an end to suicide bombings.
At the same time, a newspaper in Britain reported that Palestinians were within hours of declaring a unilateral end to attacks on Israeli citizens when their efforts were scuttled by the air strike.
Palestinian information minister Yasser Abed Rabbo said Palestinian groups had held talks on renouncing the attacks before an Israeli F-16 killed 16 Palestinians, including the military chief of the Hamas, in Gaza on Monday.
“They even reached an understanding where the suicide bombings will stop on condition that the Israelis withdraw from Palestinian cities and that Israeli assassination operations and arrests will stop,” he said.
“But apparently Israel was aware of this understanding and they carried out their attack in Gaza to foil this understanding,” Abed Rabbo said.
UK Paper: The Times of London reported on Wednesday that a Palestinian declaration containing an “unconditional” commitment to end suicide attacks on Israeli civilians was finalized just hours before the Gaza strike.
The report said Western diplomats believed they were “within hours” of clinching the accord when the Israelis struck.
The Palestinian statement was being put together with the help of a high-level European diplomat and an American who has worked with the Palestinian leadership for two decades, the paper said.
The unsigned declaration promised a partial end to violence, leaving open the prospect of attacks on Israeli soldiers in the occupied territories, the paper said.
The Times said it saw a copy of the text and quoted international mediators involved as saying that two hours before the air strike a senior leader of Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement met militant Hamas leaders in Gaza to secure their support.
The text spoke of a unilateral halt to suicide atacks, mortar and missile fire, and all other operations against Israeli civilians, Yediot said.
It said the declaration was put together over the past two months with the support of leaders from Europe, Saudi Arabia and Egypt.
Palestinian groups have vowed revenge for the strike on a neighbourhood in central Gaza City that left 15 civilians dead, including 10 children, in addition to Hamas military chief Salah Shehade and his bodyguard.
Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, spiritual leader of Hamas, said his movement was ready to declare a “conditional truce” before the Gaza raid.
“It is true ... (that Hamas) was ready to declare a truce, on certain conditions, not only an Israeli withdrawal” from reoccupied Palestinian areas, he told Spain’s ABC newspaper in an interview.
“However, after what happened, the only worthy course left is holy war,” he added.—AFP