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Abbas urges Palestinian militants to follow truce

Posted on: Tuesday, 27 December 2005, 19:06 CST

By Nidal al-Mughrabi

GAZA (Reuters) - President Mahmoud Abbas urged Palestinian factions to halt rocket fire and renew a truce that expires at year's end and Israel struck the Gaza Strip on Wednesday to try to stop the rockets.

But militant leaders who met Abbas in Gaza blamed Israel for the violence and said there was little chance that they would continue their commitment to the informal ceasefire into the new year.

"We are calling on all sides to be committed to calm," top Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat told reporters after the late night meetings. "We regard calm as in the higher interest."

Violence has been growing since Israel completed its evacuation of troops and settlers from the Gaza Strip in September after 38 years of occupation. The bloodshed has soured hopes the pullout could revive peacemaking.

A major surge of fighting could also disrupt, or even delay, Palestinian parliamentary elections that are due to be held on January 25.

After meeting Abbas, a leader of Islamic Jihad, which has carried out suicide bombings despite the truce, said he did not believe that there would be an extension to the "period of calm" that militants agreed to follow at a Cairo summit.

"When the time is up there will be a general position, but calm will most likely not be extended," said Khaled al-Batsh.

The most recent flare-up has been concentrated around northern Gaza, from where militants have fired rockets into Israel in what they call retaliation for raids in the occupied West Bank as well as strikes on Gaza.

Israeli planes have attacked targets in the Gaza Strip and the army has threatened to impose a no-go zone within an area used for firing rockets. Israel has said the buffer would be enforced with shelling and air strikes, not ground troops.

Aircraft fired missiles into the northern Gaza Strip early on Wednesday. There were no casualties. The army said it had targeted three routes used by militants firing rockets.

ELECTIONS COMING

Continued rocket firing could be a blow to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon as he campaigns to win re-election for a third term on the back of the largely popular Gaza withdrawal.

A few rockets were launched on Tuesday and one person in a northern Israeli town was slightly hurt, the army said.

On Tuesday, Israel dropped leaflets over northern Gaza telling residents "if you continue to stay in the area from which rockets are fired, you are putting your life in danger."

Palestinians have condemned the threatened buffer zone as tantamount to re-occupying parts of Gaza.

Sharon has said that he wants to pursue peacemaking with the Palestinians, but will only discuss statehood once the militant factions are disarmed -- something the Palestinians are meant to begin under a U.S.-backed peace "road map."

Israel has flouted its own road map promise to freeze the expansion of Jewish settlements and Sharon has vowed to keep major blocs forever. The Palestinians fear that could deny them the state they seek in all the West Bank and Gaza.

Abbas's dominant Fatah movement faces a strong challenge in the election from Islamic militant group Hamas, which is seen by many Palestinians as less tainted by corruption.

But Abbas is expected to take a step to end a damaging split within Fatah on Wednesday by presenting a single list of candidates for the election, bringing together the rival wings of veteran leaders and a young guard seeking a share of power.

Source: REUTERS

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