Militants renew truce after Israel fires on Gaza

By Nidal al-Mughrabi

GAZA (Reuters) – Israel fired missiles into Gaza and
detained dozens of Palestinian militants in the West Bank on
Tuesday, pursuing an offensive ordered by Prime Minister Ariel
Sharon after cross-border rocket salvoes by gunmen.

Later on Tuesday, Islamic Jihad said it and other militant
groups were abiding once again by an informal ceasefire.

“We renewed our commitment to calm while reserving the
right to respond if Israel continued its attacks. The ball now
is in Israel’s court,” senior Islamic Jihad leader Khaled
al-Batsh told Reuters after a meeting of militant factions in
Gaza City.

They fell into line with the largest faction Hamas, which
had said on Sunday it was calling off attacks, and rocket fire
from Gaza over the border into Israel has since abated.

Tuesday’s air strikes destroyed two bridges and two
buildings said by Israel to have been used by militants, hours
after Sharon overcame a leadership challenge in his right-wing
party driven by anger at his removal of settlers from Gaza.

Israeli troops rounded up 82 suspected militants in the
West Bank, bringing to 300 the number arrested since Sharon
ordered a crackdown on armed factions that resumed rocket fire
last week for the first time since Israel’s pullout from Gaza.

Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qurie welcomed the
militants’ decision to shelve attacks. His government wants a
peaceful Gaza to create a basis for a Palestinian state.

Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz said before Islamic Jihad’s
announcement that Israel would press ahead with its offensive
as long as rocket attacks continued and that he did not rule
out a ground incursion back into Gaza.

The worst surge in violence since Israel completed the
pullout on September 12 tested the brittle ceasefire and a vow
by Sharon that his move would help the Jewish state’s security.

The executive of Sharon’s Likud party on Monday narrowly
voted down a motion by his rival Benjamin Netanyahu to bring
forward a primary election that might have unseated the
premier.

SHARON ACTS TOUGH

The result averted early elections and reduced the chances
of Sharon leaving the party he co-founded in the 1970s to
create a centrist bloc drawing on broad support for the Gaza
pullout.

Polls suggested Netanyahu would win. However, Sharon’s firm
response to resurgent Palestinian rocket fire with a series of
air strikes that killed four militants, including an Islamist
Jihad commander, may have shaded the vote in Sharon’s favor.

His authorization of further military action reflected his
need, ahead of what is sure to be a close Likud primary
showdown with Netanyahu set for April, to counter any
impression among voters that quitting Gaza has made Israel less
safe.

General elections must be held by November 2006.

Most Israelis backed Sharon’s uprooting of all 21 Jewish
settlements in Gaza after 38 years of occupation. They agreed
it made sense to extract 8,500 settlers who tied down Israeli
army divisions guarding them from 1.4 million Palestinians.

Sharon billed the move as “disengagement” from conflict
with the Palestinians in a place of no strategic or economic
value.

Netanyahu argued that the withdrawal would turn Gaza into a
militant base and said the weekend rocket attacks showed that
the first dismantling of settlements on land where Palestinians
seek statehood would spur, not deter, violence.

Sharon has tried to placate Likud hardliners by vowing that
Israel will never cede large settlement blocs in the West Bank,
where 245,000 Jews live isolated from 2.4 million Palestinians.

Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat said the Likud
vote was an internal Israeli matter and added: “We invite Mr
Sharon to resume final-status talks so we can reach the end
game.”

Palestinians are keen to launch negotiations based on a
U.S.-devised “road map” peace plan for a Palestinian state in
Gaza and the West Bank. Israel rejects such talks before
Palestinians disarm militants opposed to a negotiated solution.

The latest hostilities erupted when a blast on Friday
killed 17 people at a Hamas parade in Gaza. Hamas blamed Israel
and militants fired at least 40 rockets into the Jewish state.

Israel denied responsibility and the Palestinian Authority
blamed the blast on Hamas members mishandling explosives.

(Writing by Mark Heinrich in Jerusalem, additional
reporting by Corinne Heller in Jerusalem and Wafa Amr in
Ramallah)