Hamas to provide truce proposals with Israel
Updated: 2008-04-24 21:44
CAIRO - The Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas will give Egypt detailed proposals on a truce with Israel on Thursday, a Hamas spokesman said.
 Ismail Haniyeh, the Hamas leader dismissed as prime minister by President Mahmoud Abbas, listens during an open ceremony for a new children hospital in Gaza April 23, 2008. [Agencies]
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A Hamas delegation led by former Palestinian Foreign Minister Mahmoud el-Zahar arrived in Cairo on Wednesday night and has a meeting with Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman on Thursday afternoon, added spokesman Taher al-Nono.
Nono declined to give details of the proposals in advance but a Palestinian official familiar with the truce talks said the Islamist movement had backed away from its earlier demand that a truce should include a ban on Israeli attacks on Hamas members in both Gaza and the West Bank.
Hamas has previously insisted that a truce should begin and apply at the same time to both areas.
The new offer suggests a truce could begin in Gaza first and then move after an agreed period of time to the West Bank, said the Palestinian official, who asked not to be named.
Under the truce proposal Palestinian factions will stop rocket attacks from Gaza and Israel will refrain from raids and targeted killings and will open up crossing points out of Gaza, especially the Rafah crossing with Egypt, he added.
Israel has said it is not negotiating a truce with Hamas but would have no reason to launch attacks on the Gaza Strip if rocket fire from the territory ceased. But it says it reserves the right to take military action to protect its citizens.
The Egyptian intelligence chief, who is in regular contact with the Israelis, has been trying to negotiate a truce between Israel and Hamas, especially since Palestinians broke through the border with Egypt in January to escape a long Israeli siege.
Former US President Jimmy Carter, on a Middle East tour which ended this week, tried to persuade Hamas to declare a unilateral ceasefire with Israel. Hamas declined on the grounds that Israel had not responded to similar gestures in the past.
Dozens of Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza in the past 10 days. Three Israeli soldiers were killed on the border with Gaza on April 16.
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