Israel will host an Egyptian mediator today to hear a proposal for a truce with Hamas in the Gaza Strip, though the Jewish state would still shun direct negotiations with the Islamist faction, Israeli officials said.
Following talks with Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman in Cairo last month, Hamas offered a six-month halt to hostilities in Gaza if Israel were also to lift a crippling embargo on the coastal Palestinian territory.
A spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert rebuffed the initiative when it was broached, but Israeli Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilnai signaled possible flexibility yesterday.
PHOTO: AP
“Omar Suleiman will come, we will listen to him, we will confer, we will see what he is offering, and on that basis we will make decisions,” he told Israel Radio.
“As of now, there is nothing on the table for discussion ... We have no dialogue with an organization that flies the flag of our destruction,” Vilnai said in reference to Hamas’ refusal to forswear violence and recognize Israel.
The US has endorsed Cairo’s mediation in hope of curbing violence that threatens to derail peace talks between Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Hamas’ Western-backed and secular rival.
A senior Israeli official said this month that Israel would likely agree to an informal ceasefire in Gaza if cross-border rocket attacks and arms smuggling into the territory ended.
On Friday, a mortar bomb fired by Hamas fighters in Gaza across the border killed an Israeli civilian. Hours later, Israel’s air force killed five Hamas security men in Gaza.
Egypt would want to parlay any Gaza truce into a similar future deal in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Cairo’s plan also includes attempts to reconcile Hamas, which rules Gaza, and Abbas’s Fatah movement, which runs the Palestinian Authority from its West Bank base.
Palestinian militants bombarded southern Israel with rockets and mortars on Saturday, threatening the fragile Egyptian efforts to broker a truce.
No one was hurt in the early morning attacks.
Israel said militants fired 21 rockets and four mortars by late on Saturday afternoon, directly striking a house in the rocket-scarred border town of Sderot, a frequent target for militants. Another landed next to a Jewish seminary and another in the courtyard of a local college.
Hamas seized Gaza from Fatah last June, prompting Israel to step up economic sanctions and Egypt to shut its border with the coastal enclave. That border was temporarily opened on Saturday to allow sick and wounded Palestinians to seek treatment abroad.
Olmert, whose domestic standing has been sapped by an Israeli police investigation into his finances, pledged in a speech on Saturday to press ahead with peace talks with Abbas while responding harshly to attacks from Gaza.
“We will not desist from our actions and the other side knows how painful and harsh can be the blow that it will suffer,” he said. “We will not relent until there will be full security for the citizens of Israel’s south.”
A spokesman for Hamas’ armed wing said his group would “continue fire until the last moment” before a ceasefire is completed.
Palestinian militants frequently shoot crude rockets and mortars into southern Israel from Gaza. The attacks, which have killed 14 people since late 2001, often provoke Israeli airstrikes and ground incursions that kill far more Palestinians. Hostilities have ebbed since more than 120 Palestinians died in a broad Israeli military offensive two months ago.
Though both sides appear eager to halt the fighting, Hamas also wants Israel to end its blockade of Gaza, which is meant to pressure the group to stop Palestinian militants from firing their salvos into Israel.
Officials in Gaza said they had turned off two of three turbines at a power plant providing electricity to thousands of Gazans because Israel had not provided enough diesel to run the plants.
Ninety percent of Gaza City, the territory’s biggest city, was plunged into darkness on Saturday night, energy official Kaanan Obeid said.
An Israeli army spokesman said Israel did not deliver as much fuel as planned to Gaza this week because Palestinian militants attacked the crossing Israel uses to deliver the diesel.
It was not immediately clear if the power station had actually run out of fuel or whether Gaza’s Hamas rulers wanted to exaggerate the impression of crisis.
Israel has in the past limited its rations of fuel and other supplies to Gaza in an attempt to pressure militants to stop firing rockets at nearby Israeli towns. But government spokesman David Baker denied Israel was to blame for the electricity cutback.
“Israel continues to supply fuel and vital humanitarian goods to Gaza,” Baker said. “There is no logical reason for this fuel plant to be shut down. This is another example of Hamas orchestrating an artificial crisis for its own political aims.”
About 400 people, including Hamas officials, took part in a candlelight vigil in Gaza City protesting the fuel shortages.
In recent months, Gazans have commonly spent four to six hours a day without electricity because of fuel shortages. Many people used to rely on generators to fill the breach, but fuel for these units also has become exceedingly scarce, leaving most people to resort to candles.
It is widely believed that Hamas has diverted some of the fuel Israel has delivered for its own use.
In other violence, nine Palestinians were shot on Saturday in the West Bank during clashes with Israeli troops after youths hurled rocks and firebombs at army jeeps, medics said.
An army spokeswoman said the violence in the town of Jaba broke out after Palestinian youths noticed that a military jeep had broken down. The attacks continued after reinforcements were called in and troops responded by firing live rounds in the air, rubber-coated bullets and tear gas, she said.
Palestinian security recently beefed up its forces in Jenin district to try disarm Palestinian militants who organize attacks on Israel. Palestinians say Israeli army incursions into the area are a hindrance. The issue has become a major point of contention in peace talks between the two sides.
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