Region | Palestinian Territories

Egypt mediation key to fragile ceasefire

Officials to meet with top-level delegation in Cairo on Sunday to thrash out a durable peace deal.

  • Reuters
  • Published: 23:40 January 24, 2009
  • Gulf News

Gaza: An unofficial truce between Israel and Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip will hold as long as Egyptian mediation continues, a Palestinian official close to Egyptian-sponsored talks said on Saturday.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert ordered a 'unilateral' end to a devastating 22-day military attack on the coastal territory last Saturday, and Hamas and other Gaza Palestinian resistance groups called their own halt hours later.

Nothing was signed and there is as yet no official ceasefire between them.

But the Palestinian official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said he did not expect Hamas or any other faction to call off the truce, since Egyptian leaders are to meet Hamas officials in Cairo today to discuss conditions for a durable ceasefire.

Hamas official Ayman Taha, a member of the Gaza three-man delegation, said officials from the group's exiled leadership Syria were also due in Egypt late yesterday for talks.

Hamas said any new deal with Israel must ensure the opening of all border posts with the Jewish state, which maintains a tight blockade of Gaza.

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Hamas also demands the reopening of the Rafah border post with Egypt, the Palestinians' only window to the outside world that does not go through Israel, and the lifting of the economic blockade.

"We are here to discuss how a ceasefire can become durable," Taha said.

Israel on Friday dismissed international calls for a full reopening of border posts with the Gaza Strip, leaving the shaky ceasefire in question and casting doubts on the viability of post-war reconstruction for Gaza's 1.5 million people.

Hamas leaders reject opening the Rafah post under conditions set by a 2005 US brokered agreement that would turn over control of security to their political rival, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, together with European monitors, to ensure no weapons are smuggled in.

Hamas insists on playing a significant role in the Rafah administration, but the official said it was willing to accept the presence of members of Abbas's presidential guard, with a special arrangement he did not disclose.

Leaders of the group have in the past said they could also accept European monitors on conditions that do not allow international observers to have a say over the operation of the outpost.

But Israel believes Abbas's men - who were driven out of Gaza when Hamas took over the coastal enclave in a brief, bloody civil war in 2007 - would again be intimidated by Hamas fighters who would take effective control of the outpost.

Hamas officials also said that abducted Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit whom fighters captured in a cross-border raid in 2006 would only be released in exchange for prisoners being held in Israeli jails, a demand they have made since the abduction. Israel believes restrictions at the outpost could give it leverage to free the soldier.

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