Islamic Militants in Gaza Accept Truce

Islamic militants have accepted a proposal to halt attacks on Israelis for three months, a senior militia official said Friday, providing the first confirmation from the militants that agreement has been reached.

A formal truce announcement is to be made Sunday, according to officials close to the talks.

The militia leader, who spoke on condition that neither his name nor the name of his organization be used, said the “trilateral document is now ready,” referring to the agreement.

Palestinian negotiators said Wednesday that Hamas, the largest of the Islamic groups, and the smaller, Iranian-backed Islamic Jihad signed an accord along with Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement.

Under the agreement, the groups which have carried out attacks on Israel that have claimed hundreds of lives would agree to a three-month cease-fire.

A cease-fire is a key element for starting the U.S.-backed “road map” peace plan that envisions creating a Palestinian state by 2005.

The groups’ acceptance of the cease-fire came after four Palestinians and an Israeli soldier were killed Friday in a firefight as soldiers raided two homes while searching for a top Hamas bombmaker.

In the two-hour battle, soldiers blew up a house and fired more than a dozen tank shells as combat helicopters fired machine guns toward gunmen. The target of the raid, Adnan al-Ghoul, the chief bombmaker of Hamas, was not present.

Also Friday, Israeli-Palestinian talks on the terms of an Israeli troop pullback in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank town of Bethlehem – in line with the “road map” – yielded “real progress,” a Palestinian official said.

Negotiators resolved the key sticking point, control over the main north-south road in Gaza, and another meeting was scheduled for later Friday to conclude a deal, the official said.

A troop pullback would be the first major step by Israel toward implementing the peace plan launched June 4 by President Bush at a Jordan summit. The plan calls on Israel to return to positions it held before the outbreak of fighting in September 2000 and requires Palestinian security forces to dismantle militias, but Palestinian leaders have said they will not launch a crackdown.

Condoleezza Rice, the U.S. national security adviser, will arrive in the region Saturday as Bush’s personal envoy to talk to the Palestinian and Israeli prime ministers about the plan.

En route to the Middle East, Rice called on the European Union to outlaw the political wing of Hamas to dry up donations to the group, which has killed hundreds of Israelis in bombings and shootings.

Hamas’ military wing issued a statement blaming the United States for Friday’s Israeli strikes but refrained for the first time from making customary threats of more attacks against Israel.

The Damascus, Syria-based leaders of Hamas and Islamic Jihad had agreed to a suspension of attacks earlier this week but a formal announcement has been delayed until the weekend to add final touches.

Israel has shrugged off the emerging truce as an internal Palestinian matter and has said the hunt for militants would not cease.

“Such operations will continue until we have a cease-fire,” Israeli government spokesman Avi Pazner said. “If and when the cease-fire will be put into effect, then we will look again at that kind of (operation).”

Other Israeli officials have said their even if a truce was declared, Israel would still go after militants it believed were threatening its security.

In Friday’s raid, Israeli commandos surrounded the home of Omran al-Ghoul, a brother of the Hamas bombmaker and himself an operative of the group, in the village of Mujarkha in the central Gaza Strip.

In the ensuing gunbattle between soldiers and dozens of armed Palestinians, Omran al-Ghoul, as well as the bombmaker’s 19-year-old son, Mohammed, and an Israeli soldier were killed. In a separate clash nearby, a bystander and another gunman were killed, Palestinian hospital officials said.

Palestinian witnesses said they heard 17 tank shells being shot during the battles and helicopters fired incessantly.

Adnan al-Ghoul, 42, also known as “The Engineer,” has overseen the construction of homemade Qassam rockets that have been fired at nearby Jewish settlements and Israeli border communities. He has been wanted for more than a decade by both Israel and the Palestinian Authority. Israel repeatedly has tried to kill him.

Thousands of Palestinians marched in a funeral procession for the four Palestinians killed and called for revenge. Some shouted out a warning for the Palestinian prime minister, also known as Abu Mazen: “Abu Mazen, listen closely. There is nothing except resistance.”

The agreement for a three-month truce was worked out between Marwan Barghouti, West Bank leader of Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement, and heads of Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Khaled Mashal, the Hamas leader, then drafted the deal based on his discussions with Barghouti.

Barghouti is in an Israeli prison while on trial for alleged complicity in Palestinian attacks that killed 26 Israelis.

Negotiators said the truce would halt attacks by the three groups for three months and would apply to the West Bank and Gaza as well as Israel, a key Israeli demand. In exchange, they demanded an end to killings of militants and military strikes and the release of prisoners; however, these were not made conditions for beginning the truce.