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| Israel-Palestine-Jordan | ||
| Hamas may consider new truce with Israel | ||
| 2008-12-24 | ||
| A tense calm reigned over the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip on Tuesday as the Palestinian Islamist group said it may agree to a new truce with Israel. Gaza Islamists were holding their fire and Israeli forces were not carrying out raids on the territory after Hamas announced on Monday that it would not launch rockets or fire mortars for 24 hours. Senior Hamas leader Mahmud Zahar told AFP that the movement could consider extending the temporary lull and agreeing to a new long-term truce, following the expiry on Friday of a six-month ceasefire. Hamas is ready to renew the truce "if Israel respects the conditions of a ceasefire," he said. Hamas demands
"We demand that Israel respect truce conditions... in particular that it stop all form of aggression and open the border crossings," said Zahar, one of Hamas's most hard line leaders.
However Egyptian security sources warn that Hamas's efforts to haggle over another truce risks the possibility of having one. "They are haggling with ceasefire in order to improve its conditions, but we believe their calculations are wrong as neither the time, nor haggling will be fruitful. We know in advance their attempts will be doomed to fail," an unnamed Egyptian security official told the Saudi daily newspaper Al Medina. | ||
| Posted by:Fred |