Gaza truce violated after Palestinian rocket attacks

Gaza: Palestinian militants fired several rockets at Israel from Gaza on Sunday just hours after a ceasefire aimed at ending five months of bloodshed took effect.

The truce, which has raised the possibility of Middle East peacemaking being revived, is designed to end rocket attacks and halt a crushing Israeli army offensive in Gaza.

Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for firing three rockets at southern Israel and said it would not agree to a ceasefire unless Israeli military activity also ended in the occupied West Bank. No one was hurt in the attacks.

"There is no way to talk about a truce as long as aggression continues on any of our land," Islamic Jihad, one of the bigger Palestinian militant organisations, said in a statement.

The armed wing of the governing Hamas Islamist movement said it fired two rockets at Israeli targets, arguing Israeli troops were still inside Gaza despite a statement from the army that all had withdrawn.

Israel said the truce did not cover the West Bank. Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said it was too early to say if the Gaza agreement was unravelling.

"We have to see this as the start of an opportunity. We are at the initial hours of this process, it is too early to say," Livni told Army Radio.

Hamas government spokesman Ghazi Hamad denounced the rocket attacks, describing them as a violation of the ceasefire. Hamad said the government would speak to the factions which violated the truce.

"We are committed to the agreement on calm ... We will look into this, we will talk to the factions concerned," Hamad said.

The Israeli army said it had withdrawn its forces from Gaza overnight, before the truce took effect. Palestinian witnesses confirmed soldiers had left northern Gaza, where operations against rocket-launching squads had been focused.

The ceasefire - if it holds - could pave the way for a summit between Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on ways to restart peacemaking.

Peace talks collapsed in 2000, just before a Palestinian uprising erupted.

The truce might also speed up efforts to arrange a swap of Palestinian prisoners in Israel for an Israeli soldier whose capture by gunmen in a cross-border raid from Gaza in late June sparked the Israeli military assault.