MIDDLE EAST: Leaders of the radical Hamas group in Gaza last night denied reports they had agreed to a three-month ceasefire, insisting the matter was still under consideration and that a final decision on a cessation of attacks against Israel had not yet been reached, writes Peter Hirschberg in Jerusalem.
President Bush was also sceptical when asked yesterday about the possibility a truce had been agreed in talks between militant groups and the Palestinian Prime Minister, Mr Mahmoud Abbas.
"I'll believe it when I see it," he said at a news conference in Washington with European Union leaders.
In fact, Mr Bush appeared to call into question the very notion of a ceasefire with groups like Hamas. "It's one thing to make a verbal agreement," he said, "but in order for there to be peace in the Middle East, we must see organisations such as Hamas dismantled and then we'll have peace, we'll have a chance for peace."
In a move which could further complicate truce efforts, Israeli helicopter gunships yesterday fired missiles at two cars in southern Gaza, killing two people, including a woman, and injuring 16, in what the army said was a strike on Hamas militants on their way to fire mortar shells at Israeli targets.
Palestinian sources, however, said the strike was an attempt to assassinate a Hamas militant, Mr Mohammed Seyam, who was injured in the attack.
Doctors said he had his leg amputated.
Another two Hamas militants were killed earlier yesterday in a firefight with Israeli troops in northern Gaza.
Reports that an elusive truce had been reached emerged yesterday afternoon after Mr Fares Kadoura, a senior member of Palestinian Authority President Mr Yasser Arafat's Fatah party, said the internal dialogue among Palestinian groups "has resulted in a ceasefire agreement for a period of three months".
He said the deal had been forged by Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti, who is in an Israeli jail facing terror charges, and Hamas leader Khaled Mashal and Ramadan Shalah of the Islamic Jihad, both of whom are based in Damascus. Hamas, Fatah and Islamic Jihad are the three groups which have carried out most of the attacks against Israelis since the intifada uprising began 33 months ago.
"We in the Fatah movement demand that the Israeli government respond to this initiative with a comprehensive halting of aggression against the Palestinian people," Mr Fares said. "We consider this as a step to ending occupation and we salute the spirit of responsibility in the Hamas and Islamic Jihad."
However Mr Fares appears to have gotten ahead of himself. In Gaza, Hamas leader Dr Abdel Aziz Rantisi, who narrowly escaped an Israeli attempt on his life earlier this month, insisted no deal had been reached.
"In the coming days we will have an answer and . . . Israeli terrorist actions will be taken into account when we decide," he said, in an apparent reference to the helicopter strike in Gaza.
"Every time we near a decision, \ slaughters more of our people."
Another top Hamas official, Mr Ismail Haniyeh, said the announcement of a truce was an attempt to put pressure on his movement to agree to halt attacks, while another of his colleagues, Mr Mahmoud Zahar, dismissed the report of a ceasefire agreement as "all lies".
Hamas's military wing, the Izz al-Deen al-Qassam Brigades, issued a statement saying the missile attack yesterday was "clear evidence that the criminal occupier does not want to achieve the calm it claims to be seeking. We will not stand by handcuffed. On the contrary, we will respond to such crimes."
Armed Palestinian groups are demanding an end to Israeli military actions in the territories and a halt to strikes against their leaders in exchange for a temporary truce.
Israeli leaders however say a ceasefire is not enough and that Mr Abbas must crush militant groups if the US-backed road map peace plan is to have any chance.
Mr Raanan Gissin, an aide to the Israeli Prime Minister, Mr Ariel Sharon, said Israel was "willing" to stop targeted assassinations if the Palestinian Authority "prevents such suicide and homicide killings emanating from territory under its control".