MIDDLE EAST:DEPOSED PALESTINIAN prime minister Ismail Haniyeh announced yesterday that Hamas is waiting for Israel's reply to ceasefire proposals put forward by Cairo. "The ball is in Israel's court," he said during a graduation ceremony at Gaza's Islamic University.
He said the ceasefire must be reciprocal, comprehensive and simultaneous and apply to Gaza and the West Bank. "There must be a commitment by Israel to halt its aggression against our people, including assassinations, killings, and raids. They must lift the [ Gaza] siege and reopen the crossings" between the Strip and Israel and Egypt.
Mr Haniyeh warned that Israel and the US were trying to uproot the Palestinian resistance in the West Bank. "We will not abandon you, our people in the West Bank. Your wounds are ours; your goals are ours, your destiny is ours, and so we will never separate the Gaza Strip from the rest of Palestine."
On the practical level, Hamas argues that the ceasefire must embrace the West Bank as well as Gaza because militants in one territory often retaliate for Israeli operations in the other. Yesterday Popular Front fighters fired two missiles at the Israeli city of Ashkelon following Israel's killing of an Islamic Jihad officer in the West Bank and Islamic Jihad threatened to strike deep inside Israel.
Mr Haniyeh used the Arabic word "tahdiya" - to calm the situ- ation - to define the informal ceasefire he is seeking rather than "hudna", a full-scale truce. Both terms relate to a temporary halt although Hamas had previously offered a long-term "hudna" until terms for a peaceful settlement could be negotiated.
Egyptian foreign ministry spokesman Hossam Zaki confirmed that Cairo is negotiating with Hamas, Fatah and Israel and said there has been some progress. "Both [ Hamas and Israel] express an interest in a period of calm. The issue now [ under discussion] is whether there will be guarantees so that military confrontations and operations will not resume."
Egypt's intelligence chief, Omar Suleiman, who is conducting the mediation effort, has secured Hamas's agreement for the reopening of the main Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt, its operation by forces loyal to President Mahmoud Abbas who broke with Hamas last June, and the return of EU monitors.
Meanwhile, Israeli forces killed four Palestinians in Bethlehem, in the West Bank, yesterday. Three of the dead are believed to belong to the Islamic Jihad group.
