JERUSALEM, March 10: A lull in fighting between Israel and Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip could turn into a ceasefire, an Israeli government official said on Monday.
“It seems that Hamas has decided for now not to shoot. And we’re not shooting either,” said the official, who declined to be named because of the sensitivity of the issue.
“This could well become a ceasefire. But the ball is in Hamas’s court,” the Israeli government official said.
Egypt has been trying to mediate a truce that could be key to US-brokered peace efforts.
Israel has not struck in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip since Thursday, three days after it ended an offensive that killed 120 Palestinians.
The number of Palestinian rocket attacks on southern Israel has also dropped sharply since Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said last Wednesday Israeli forces would have no reason to attack Gaza if the daily salvoes stopped.
Hamas’s armed wing has not itself claimed responsibility for firing any rockets since Israel wrapped up its ground and air assault. In the absence of Israeli “aggression”, Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri said, the group had no cause to launch them.In new public comments on the lull, Olmert insisted Israel was not negotiating with Hamas “directly or indirectly”. But in a nod to a possible de facto truce, he repeated that if rockets were not fired at Israel, “we will have no reason to shoot”.
Israel, the United States and the European Union refuse to talk with the Hamas Islamist group until it recognises Israel, renounces violence and accepts existing interim Israeli-Palestinian peace deals.
BLOODSHED: The recent fighting along the Israel-Gaza frontier and longer-range rocket salvoes that hit a major southern Israeli city had threatened to derail US-brokered statehood talks.
In protest at the bloodshed, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas briefly suspended negotiations. They are due to resume later this week.
Egypt held inconclusive meetings on Thursday with leaders of Hamas and another militant group, Islamic Jihad. A senior Israeli defence official, Amos Gilad, visited Cairo over the weekend.
Over the past three days, Gaza militants from various factions have launched four rockets and 10 mortar bombs across the frontier, the Israeli military said, compared with about 10 to 15 rockets a day a week earlier.
“The efforts by Egypt are highly appreciated,” Gazan Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh said in a statement, calling the pause in Israeli attacks in the Gaza Strip a sign of “US and Israeli recognition that our people are unbreakable”.
An Israeli political source said there had been “an exchange of ideas” between Israel and Hamas via Egyptian mediators. The source did not elaborate.
The political source said Olmert was keen to calm violence with Hamas so that talks with Abbas could make progress and enable him to present a viable peace platform to voters should the statehood moves force a new Israeli election.
Amid much scepticism, Washington has said it hopes to achieve a deal before year’s end on Palestinian statehood.
For Hamas, a ceasefire would be particularly attractive if it included an easing of an Israeli-led Gaza blockade. Israeli generals, however, are concerned Hamas might use a lull to regroup and rearm after last week’s punishing Israeli offensive.—Reuters
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