A Hamas official says the group has softened its demands for a ceasefire with Israel.
Spokesman Ghazi Hamad says Hamas is now prepared for a partial truce that would only include the Gaza Strip. Hamad says the proposal has been relayed to Egyptian mediators.
This is a dramatic departure for Hamas. The group previously has demanded the West Bank be included in any deal.
In return, Hamas wants Israel and Egypt to open their trade and passenger crossings with Gaza, which have been sealed since Hamas violently seized control of Gaza last June.
Meanwhile, Egypt’s state-run newspaper al-Ahram said yesterday that Egyptian negotiators had reached a preliminary agreement with Hamas on a truce with Israel.
“Egypt has reached a preliminary agreement with Hamas on the methods of achieving a period of calm with the Israelis, and [intelligence chief] Omar Suleiman will relay the results of these contacts and the principles of the agreement to Israel to reach a final agreement,” the paper said.
Al-Ahram attributed the information to “an informed source,” but the comments came in the context of comments by Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to reporters accompanying him on a visit to France.
In related news, Israel said yesterday that a mission by former US president Jimmy Carter to work out a ceasefire with Hamas had failed.
Senior Defense Ministry official Amos Gilad said Hamas presented nothing new in its demands for a truce during Carter’s meetings over the weekend with Hamas officials in Damascus. Gilad told Israel’s Army Radio that Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal had not budged in his demands, and thus Carter had failed.
In other news, Israeli troops killed three Palestinian gunmen in the northern part of the Gaza Strip yesterday near the Erez border crossing with Israel, Palestinian officials and the Israeli army said.
Islamic Jihad and a militant group belonging to the Fatah faction said three of their fighters were killed while trying to attack an army base near the crossing.
Airlines in Australia, Hong Kong, India, Malaysia and Singapore yesterday canceled flights to and from the Indonesian island of Bali, after a nearby volcano catapulted an ash tower into the sky. Australia’s Jetstar, Qantas and Virgin Australia all grounded flights after Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki on Flores island spewed a 9km tower a day earlier. Malaysia Airlines, AirAsia, India’s IndiGo and Singapore’s Scoot also listed flights as canceled. “Volcanic ash poses a significant threat to safe operations of the aircraft in the vicinity of volcanic clouds,” AirAsia said as it announced several cancelations. Multiple eruptions from the 1,703m twin-peaked volcano in
A plane bringing Israeli soccer supporters home from Amsterdam landed at Israel’s Ben Gurion airport on Friday after a night of violence that Israeli and Dutch officials condemned as “anti-Semitic.” Dutch police said 62 arrests were made in connection with the violence, which erupted after a UEFA Europa League soccer tie between Amsterdam club Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv. Israeli flag carrier El Al said it was sending six planes to the Netherlands to bring the fans home, after the first flight carrying evacuees landed on Friday afternoon, the Israeli Airports Authority said. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also ordered
Former US House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi said if US President Joe Biden had ended his re-election bid sooner, the Democratic Party could have held a competitive nominating process to choose his replacement. “Had the president gotten out sooner, there may have been other candidates in the race,” Pelosi said in an interview on Thursday published by the New York Times the next day. “The anticipation was that, if the president were to step aside, that there would be an open primary,” she said. Pelosi said she thought the Democratic candidate, US Vice President Kamala Harris, “would have done
Farmer Liu Bingyong used to make a tidy profit selling milk but is now leaking cash — hit by a dairy sector crisis that embodies several of China’s economic woes. Milk is not a traditional mainstay of Chinese diets, but the Chinese government has long pushed people to drink more, citing its health benefits. The country has expanded its dairy production capacity and imported vast numbers of cattle in recent years as Beijing pursues food self-sufficiency. However, chronically low consumption has left the market sloshing with unwanted milk — driving down prices and pushing farmers to the brink — while