Hamas offers to study fresh Gaza truce with Israel

Gaza: Hamas would consider renewing a lapsed truce with Israel in the Gaza Strip, but wants guarantees the Jewish state will halt incursions and keep border crossings open for supplies of aid and fuel, a spokesman said on Tuesday.

Gaza's Islamist leaders had initially ruled out extending the six-month-old, Egyptian-brokered truce, which they declared dead last Friday. Palestinian fighters stepped up cross-border rocket fire, ratcheting up tensions with Israel.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, after a meeting with his Egyptian counterpart Hosni Mubarak on Tuesday, said Egypt will push for a new truce between Israel and Hamas.

Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said Hamas and other Gaza factions were now prepared to study offers to renew the accord.

Meanwhile, French Prime Minister Francois Fillon said in Egypt on Tuesday that pushing forward the stagnant Middle East peace process will be impossible without a lasting truce in the Gaza Strip. "We would like the discussion about the truce in Gaza to end in a positive way," Fillon said.

Hamas's apparent shift came two days before scheduled talks in Cairo between Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, a top candidate to succeed Ehud Olmert as prime minister in next February's election.