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| Israel-Palestine-Jordan |
| Israel-Hamas truce announced |
| 2008-06-18 |
| Israel and Hamas have agreed to a ceasefire arrangement, according to Egyptian and Palestinian officials. 'Implementation of the truce will begin at 6am (0300 GMT) on Thursday,' a Palestinian official said on Tuesday. Hamas said it would respect the six-month deal, which materialised after months of mediation by Egypt. 'Hamas will adhere to the timetable which was set by Egypt but it is our Israeli officials, however, have yet to confirm the Egyptian-brokered deal. David Chater, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Jerusalem, said Ehud Barak, Israel's defence minister, said it was too early to talk about a truce and that the details of any deal were still being finalised. 'A senior Israeli delegate is travelling to Egypt tonight [Tuesday] to meet [Egyptian intelligence chief Omar] Suleiman, who is leading the negotiations, brokering this deal,' Chater said. 'The Israelis have not rubber-stamped any deal yet. There is no agreement yet, as far as the Israelis are concerned, and they are a vital part of any truce.' |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #1 since this is ops, I wont discuss the politics of the deal, which ive briefly talked about in the non-ops thread. here, the first question is, how long will the calm last? In particular, does everybody in the strip, IJ, dogmush, etc support the deal, or will they try to undercut it by attacking Israel (either defying hamas, or with a wink from Hamas). Lots of Israelis (including, I think, Barak) would like an excuse to toss the deal aside, so winking would be a dangerous game for hamas. Theres supposed to be a couple of days of quiet before Rafah opens, so they will probably want to hold at least that long. |
| Posted by: liberalhawk 2008-06-18 09:29 |