Israel and Hamas Agree to a Cease-Fire, Egypt Says

Ilhamda'allah!!

June 18, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/18/world/middleeast/18mideast.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin
By ISABEL KERSHNER and GRAHAM BOWLEY
JERUSALEM — Israel and the Islamist group Hamas have agreed on a mutual cease-fire to take effect Thursday following negotiations brokered by Egypt, Egyptian state media announced on Tuesday.

The official Egyptian state-owned news agency MENA and state-run television quoted an unidentified senior Egyptian official as saying that the truce would start at 6 a.m. Thursday. Israeli officials would not immediately confirm or deny that any agreement had been reached.

Talks, brokered by Egypt, have been proceeding intensively between Israel and Hamas, which controls Gaza. Both sides have appeared keen on achieving a cease-fire, but until the truce comes into effect neither side is likely to stop exchanges, and on Tuesday three Israeli airstrikes hit targets in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli Army said.

Palestinian medical officials in Gaza said that at least six militants were killed in the strikes and two others wounded.

However, a Palestinian official quoted by Reuters said that despite the deaths the negotiations for a truce were still on track.

“The two sides agreed, and the implementation of the truce will begin” on Thursday, the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to announce a deal, said.

Meanwhile, according to Bloomberg News, Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said on al-Quds Radio: “We are so close to hammering out a final truce agreement. The cease-fire will include a cessation of fire, ending the blockade and reopening the closed border crossings of the Gaza Strip.”

On Monday, Ismail Haniya, a senior leader of Hamas, which controls Gaza, said that the talks brokered by Egypt for a period of calm with Israel were nearing completion and that he hoped for a “happy ending.”

Witnesses to the airstrikes on Tuesday said five of the six killed in the strikes were members of the armed wing of the radical group Islamic Jihad. The sixth was also a militant but was not immediately identified.

The Israeli military said the first two strikes hit vehicles carrying what they called “terror operatives.” The third strike was against “other activists,” the army said.

The medical officials in Gaza said four militants were killed in the first strike against a car driving on a road east of Khan Yunis, while the second strike was also on a car.

Towns and villages in southern Israel have been under continual rocket and mortar fire from Gaza in recent months, while Gaza has been subject to frequent Israeli military strikes aimed at militants and incursions.

Israel’s security cabinet decided last week to pursue an arrangement for mutual quiet, though it also instructed the military to prepare for more serious action should the talks fail or the truce break down.

The developments Tuesday come after Israel appeared to be making diplomatic progress on other fronts Monday: a possible prisoner exchange with Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant group, and a second round of indirect talks with Syrian representatives in Turkey.

Israeli officials refused to comment about possible developments with Hezbollah and said it would be premature to draw any conclusions about understandings with Syria.

Some Israelis, meanwhile, have suggested that the current flurry of diplomatic activity is intended to distract attention from the political and legal troubles of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who the police say is suspected of receiving illicit funds.

The possibility of an imminent exchange with Hezbollah, involving the two Israeli Army reservists whose capture by the militant group set off the 2006 war in Lebanon, seemed more likely on Monday when Zvi Regev, the father of one of the reservists, said he had been told about the men’s possible return. Mr. Regev, the father of Eldad Regev, told Israel Radio that Ofer Dekel, the Israeli official in charge of the soldiers’ case, informed the family two weeks ago “that a deal was about to be carried out.”

Mr. Dekel did not go into detail, he said, and did not know about the soldiers’ condition. Both were wounded in a Hezbollah ambush across the Israeli border that led to their capture in July 2006; the Lebanese group has offered no proof that they are alive.

Two Lebanese newspapers, Al-Akhbar and As-Safir, reported on Monday that a prisoner exchange could take place as early as the end of this week.

On June 1, Hezbollah representatives unexpectedly handed over to Israel the remains of Israeli soldiers killed in the 2006 war, and Israel sent back across the border a Lebanese civilian who had completed a six-year prison term in Israel for spying for Hezbollah.

Any broader swap is likely to include the release of Samir Kuntar, the most notorious of the few remaining Lebanese prisoners in Israel. He was sentenced to multiple life terms for killing four Israelis, including a 4-year-old girl, during a terrorist raid in Nahariya in 1979.

Later on Monday, Turkish and Israeli officials announced that Israeli and Syrian representatives had completed two days of indirect talks through Turkish mediators. The talks were “serious, positive and constructive” and were to be continued, an Israeli government official said.

Israel and Syria announced three weeks ago that they were engaged in negotiations through Turkish mediators for a comprehensive peace treaty, the first talks in eight years.

The Israeli news media have been rife with reports that the Israeli team will try to persuade the Syrians to have their leaders meet face to face in Paris in mid-July at the conference, organized by President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, to establish a Mediterranean Union.

Mark Regev, a spokesman for the Israeli prime minister, confirmed that Mr. Olmert had been invited to the Paris conference and that he hoped to attend. But “anything beyond that is speculation,” Mr. Regev said.

Turkish Foreign Minster Ali Babacan said Tuesday that the latest talks had been “completed with success” and “more importantly, the calendar was set for the next two meetings which will be held in July,” news agencies reported from Luxembourg, where the Turkish official was attending a European Union meeting.

But, Mr. Babacan said, he did “not wish to elevate the expectations because this is a very complicated matter,” he said, according to Agence France-Presse. He added that Israeli and Syrian officials at the talks “left extremely satisfied with the negotiations.”

On Monday, Israeli troops killed three militants in Gaza as they were trying to plant explosives by the border fence. Islamic Jihad said the militants were laying a bomb meant to blow up an Israeli jeep on patrol.

Later, a rocket fired from Gaza by militants fell in a cemetery in the Israeli coastal city of Ashkelon about 10 miles north, and the military said one Israeli civilian was lightly wounded.

At least one militant was killed in a subsequent Israeli strike against a rocket-launching squad, the military said.

Isabel Kershner reported from Jerusalem and Graham Bowley from New York. Michael Slackman contributed reporting from Cairo, and Alan Cowell from Paris.