CAIRO - The Egyptian president urged on Thursday visiting Israeli foreign minister for Israel's restraint in responding to renewed rocket and mortar barrages from the Gaza Strip and said he also wanted the militant Palestinian Hamas to halt its fire immediately. Hosni Mubarak said he expects Gaza's Islamic militant Hamas rulers to immediately halt their fire on Israel, the Israeli official said.
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Mubarak made the plea during talks in Cairo with Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, according to an Israeli official and Livni's Egyptian counterpart. Livni's visit came after a six-month truce between Israel and Hamas expired last Friday. Egypt had brokered that truce, and Mubarak expressed hope that the agreement could be renewed, if only informally.
Livni's meeting in Cairo originally was designed to renew the Egyptian-mediated truce. But after militants pummeled Israel with more than 80 rockets and mortars on Monday, Livni dismissed that option.
In her meeting with Mubarak, she said Israel must and would respond to protects its citizens, the Israeli official said. Israel would not be deterred from acting because its Feb. 10 elections are approaching, she said. 'If Hamas thinks that because Israel is in election season, that it won't do what any democratic country would do to protect its citizens, then it's wrong,' she said later at a news conference with Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul-Gheit. 'We want to negotiate with whoever we can, but we will fight whoever doesn't believe in it.'
Israel is running out of patience with Hamas, she added, calling the militant group an obstacle on the road to a Palestinian state.
Gheit expressed Egyptian concerns that without restraint, Egypt would no longer be able to mediate between Israel and the Palestinian militants. "We can't imagine that we will be able to convince the two parties to return to a truce, as long as the heightening confrontation continues," Aboul-Gheit said. "We hope for self-restraint and that the two parties apply what they have been implementing in the past six months."
"The Egyptian goal is to keep the truce and securing it. The real goal is to give a chance for a Palestinian-Palestinian reconciliation and for Palestinian-Israeli negotiations," he added. |