Israel kills Palestinians after ceasefire in Gaza
Palestine-Israel, Politics, 11/27/2006

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas brokered a ceasefire between Islamic Jihad movement of Palestine and Israeli regime which took effect at 6 a.m. Sunday in Gaza Strip on condition that Israel pull out of Gaza Strip overnight.

Abbas spokesman Nabil Abu Rdeneh said from Gaza City that a truce reached in Egypt in February 2005 would be revived.

"There is a signed agreement between the president and Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh and all the Palestinian factions to resort to the agreement of the factions in Cairo in 2005, including ceasing all the military activity from Gaza, starting from Sunday morning," Abu Rdeneh said.

Israeli violence since last June claimed the lives of more than 300 civilians in Palestine, including 19 members of an extended family killed earlier this month in an attack on their apartment compound.
Just two hours after the ceasefire took effect, Hamas fired rockets into Israel at 7:30 and 7:55 a.m., saying that the occupying regime had not completed its withdrawal.

Also today, the New York Times reported that Israeli troops killed today in the West Bank two Palestinians, including a local militant commander of the Popular Resistance Committees group.


According to Israel's foreign ministry, Israel's Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni was asked about the cease fire being "Yesterday, Fragile and faltering, correct?" She replied "Correct. It depends greatly on them and on us as well. We can go backwards. I hope that won’t happen."


Today, US Department Od State spokesman Sean McCormack was asked that within a couple of hours of Israel's PM Ehud Olmert's speech foe peace with the Palestinians, there were rocket attacks into Israel despite the ceasefire that has been declared and responsibility was claimed by the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades which at least in theory fall underneath Fatah. McCormack said "I can't speak to the current command-and-control relationship between al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade and what other political entities. I know that that has been conventional wisdom. I can't speak to that. I don't know that. As for the various obstacles out there, one of them certainly is a Hamas-led government that has not met the Quartet conditions for realizing a political dialogue that eventually leads to a two-state solution. Therefore, Hamas is an obstacle to the Palestinian people realizing -- potentially realizing their own state."

He added "Another obstacle are the -- those rejectionist groups who would use violence to try to derail any sort of hopeful development, sort of potentially hopeful developments. There are always going to be those, those extremists, a small group of people who want to use violence to try to stymie any efforts to bring the parties together. They have their own reasons for doing those things, none of which make any sense to most people on the outside world. So in terms of the ceasefire, we would hope that there won't be challenges to it. But I think that, as you mentioned just now, there probably will be challenges to it, and it is up to the Palestinian security forces to stop those kinds of attacks, to make sure that this doesn't happen, and that the -- both parties do everything that they can to live up to the conditions of the ceasefire agreement that the two side reached together."

Speaking with MENA to the latest developments in the Palestinian cause in light of Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal's talks with Egyptian officials in Cairo, Egypt's president Hosni Mubarak said Egypt spares no effort to assist the Palestinians to end the current impasse, form a national unity government and resume negotiations on the stalled peace process.

He further warned of the repercussions of dispute among the various Palestinian factions, stressing the necessity to achieve a consensus to keep the Palestinian people's interests, lift blockade imposed by the Israeli side and set free Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.

"Negotiations and dialogue among the Palestinian factions is the only way out of the current stalemate," Mubarak asserted.

Please add a link on your webiste pointing to ArabicNews.com and bookmark ArabicNews.com & subscribe to our daily email news bulletin.

Search