Israel-Hamas Truce Confirmed By Israel

JERUSALEM — A long-sought truce between Israel and Gaza militants went into effect early Thursday, with the aim of halting militant attacks and a bruising Israeli blockade that have made life unbearable for people living on both sides of the border.

A day of intense Palestinian rocket and mortar fire and Israeli air reprisals on Wednesday underscored just how fragile the Egyptian-brokered agreement would be. Hamas security reported that the Israeli navy fired four shells into the waters off Gaza City after the truce began; the military had no immediate comment. Hamas has run the territory since seizing control a year ago.

There were no other reports of fire.

Although each side has expressed skepticism over the other's commitment to the accord, the hope is that it will avert an Israeli military invasion of the tiny seaside territory it pulled out of nearly three years ago.

Just a day before the cease-fire was set to take hold, Israel launched another diplomatic initiative _ a public call on neighboring Lebanon to open peace negotiations. Lebanon's premier quickly rejected the call.

The Gaza deal, which took effect at 6 a.m., is supposed to last six months. According to its terms, militants will immediately halt their attacks on Israel, and Israel will cease its raids.

After three days, Israel is to ease its blockade of Gaza to allow the shipment of some supplies to resume. A week later Israel is to further ease restrictions at cargo crossings. In a final stage, the sides are supposed to talk about opening a major border passage between Gaza and Egypt and the release of an Israeli soldier Hamas has held for two years.

Israel's blockade was imposed in an effort to pressure Hamas to stop attacks from Iranian-backed militants, who have been bombarding southern Israel with rockets and mortars for seven years.

The rate of fire increased after Israel pulled its troops and settlers out of Gaza in 2005 and stepped up further last year after Hamas wrested power from forces loyal to moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, whose government controls the West Bank.

"We in Hamas are committed to this calm and are interested in making it succeed," Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said shortly before the truce went into effect. "The ball is now in Israel's court."

"I hope it will succeed. I believe there will be quiet in (Israel's) south," Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said in a speech Wednesday to philanthropists. But he also said he instructed his military "to prepare for any operation, short or long, that might be necessary" if the truce breaks down.

A cease-fire in November 2006 lasted only weeks before unraveling.

The opening of Gaza's Rafah crossing with Egypt, snapped shut after Hamas violently wrested control of Gaza a year ago, is a major Hamas demand. Israel's point man on the truce negotiations, Defense Ministry official Amos Gilad, said late Wednesday that Rafah would not reopen if Israeli Cpl. Gilad Schalit were not released. But in an e-mail Thursday, Hamas' military wing said Schalit, captured in a cross-border raid, would not be freed unless hundreds of Palestinian prisoners were.

Israel has balked at releasing some of the militants Hamas wants freed because they were involved in fatal attacks on Israelis.

The Hamas Interior Ministry sent an e-mail to reporters Thursday saying 260 Palestinians who had been stranded in Egypt after seeking medical treatment there had crossed back into Gaza through Rafah overnight. It said 5,517 Gazans, including students and Palestinians with residency abroad, have applied to leave if Rafah is opened. "We expect very good news in the next few days," the ministry said _ hinting at a temporary opening to allow those people to leave.

Palestinians in Gaza have suffered the consequences of punishing Israeli retribution _ airstrikes and military raids targeting gunmen and a blockade that has cut off many vital supplies. Israelis in communities near the Gaza Strip have lived for years with barrages of mortars and rockets that send them scrambling for cover almost every day.

On Wednesday, the truce still seemed remote. The military said at least 40 rockets and 10 mortar shells exploded in Israel by nightfall, an especially high one-day total.

Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for much of the rocket fire, saying it was avenging Israeli airstrikes that killed 10 militants in the previous two days. Israel hit back with two more airstrikes, wounding two Palestinians, according to Hamas security officials.

Palestinians reported that a Hamas militant was killed in an Israeli airstrike in central Gaza shortly before the truce took hold. The military confirmed it attacked a rocket squad, but said it could not confirm an airstrike.

One of the rockets from Gaza on Wednesday exploded in Ilan Basherim's greenhouse at Moshav Yesha, not far from Gaza.

"This cease-fire will give more strength to Hamas, and they will be more violent in another six months. This is not good for Israel, and definitely not good for us," said Basherim, 38.

Khaled Abdel Halem, a 24-year-old Gaza law student, said he would be happy if Israel lifted the blockade, alleviating Gaza's abject poverty. "But honestly, I don't have much hope that this agreement will hold for a long time. We are not talking about an agreement between friends or brothers. We are talking about a deal between two enemies who wish death for each other all the time."

Peter Lerner, an Israeli military spokesman, said preparations were under way to increase the number of trucks carrying goods into Gaza beginning Sunday if the truce holds. Only one crossing is currently capable of operating at full capacity because two others have been damaged by Palestinian attacks, he said.

Lerner said fuel shipments would not immediately increase. Israel has restricted fuel supplies into Gaza, causing shortages and forcing motorists to use alternative modes of transportation.

Egypt labored for months to broker the deal, acting as middleman because Israel, like much of the international community, shuns Hamas for refusing to recognize Israel or renounce violence.

In Washington, White House deputy press secretary Gordon Johndroe was hopeful.

"We hope this means no more rockets will be fired by Hamas at innocent Israelis as well as lead to a better atmosphere for talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority," he said, "but for that to happen, Hamas has to choose to become a legitimate political party and give up terrorism."

Israel's call on Lebanon to open peace talks came after the second round of indirect talks between Israel and Syria in Turkey _ contacts made public just last month.

Government spokesman Mark Regev said Israel was interested in "direct, bilateral" talks and ready to put "every issue of contention" on the table, including the dispute over the Chebaa Farms enclave. A U.N.-drawn border calls the 15-square-mile parcel of wasteland part of Syria under Israeli occupation, but Hezbollah insists it belongs to Lebanon and has used it to explain its continuing attacks on Israel.

Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora rejected Israel's call.

"Lebanon's known position before this government is that there is no place for bilateral negotiations between Lebanon and Israel," Saniora's media office said in a statement late Wednesday.

Hezbollah legislator Nawar al-Saheli told The Associated Press that the Israeli offer is "ridiculous propaganda."

U.S. pressure may be behind the Israeli move. On Monday, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice announced U.S. backing for a new diplomatic push to resolve the Chebaa Farms land dispute in a gesture to the new Lebanese government, and as a catalyst for solving bigger issues in the region.

___

Associated Press writers Ibrahim Barzak in Gaza City and Bassem Mroue in Beirut, Lebanon contributed to this report.

Comments

[Paprikapink]

Pick a god and pray to it. And cross your fingers too. Wear your lucky socks. Somehow, this one's gotta stick!

[Paul]

Does John McCain know of this?

[GZLives]

This "truce" is nothing more then pandering to the Condi Rice, Egypt and of course allowing Hamas to rearm and catch its breath before it returns to its very important work of finishing off the infidel Jews. For those who don't see that, open your eyes and try and grasp what Islamists are all about. Look what sort of education they inculcate their children with.

Expect more fighting in less then a week. It will come when one of the many Muslim Brotherhood front groups - Muslim Brotherhood is the umbrella organization, fires rockets into Israel, Hamas will then claim its got nothing to do with them, and any Israeli response will allow Hamas to claim Israel never wanted a truce in the first place.

And of course the press, especially in Europe, will merely report the Islamist line as they usually do.

Please note I'm using the term "Islamlist" so as not to confuse it with all Muslims. I certain;

[dschwarz]

Why would Israel need to pander to Condi Rice and Egypt? Rice had nothing to do with the truce; she flew in to Israel on the eve of the truce announcement and presumably gave it the US's blessing, but the US was not involved in brokering the truce.

[GZLives]

Because Condi is doing everything she can to get GWB a legacy and Israel - ie Israeli Palestinian peace agreement - is the goal. Since Mahmoud Abbas represents almost nobody, he can not afford to have Israel respond to (today it was I believe more then 20 rockets fired at it from Gaza) the Arab rockets, as any country would respond to daily attacks. And so, Condi has prevailed upon Israel to show "restraint" supposedly to protect Abbas from his own people - which simply means, do as little as possible so we can get a peace treaty or legacy, which if you've been following the story, you'd realize will be as useless as the paper its written on since the raison d'etre of the "Palestinian Arabs" - a group dubbed by an Egypotian Arafat in the 1960's - is to destroy any "Jewish state" in the region as was demonstrated by the inability of a single Arab leader, Abbas included, to acknowledge Israel as the "Jewish State" - they just refuse and will always refuse to do it.

[prattvictory]

It will last until Israel attacks Iran. I guarantee someone in Palestine will do something in support of the Iranians and the Israelis will use that as an excuse for an even harsher oppression. The far right in Israel are just as criminal as the Neocons here. They don't want peace they stay in power by fear and war.

If anything a truce with the Likudniks is evidence of something far worse being in the works.

[GrainOSand]

Peace in the Middle East seems more of a bumper sticker than a foreseeable reality. We pray that the long-suffering endured by innocents on both sides of the struggle does one day soon cease to be a reality. It is my contention that it takes a third party to resolve conflicts between two sworn enemies. In the case of the Palestinian and Israeli struggle, I think that third party might have to be aliens from outer space who seek to wipe them both off the face of the earth. Through having a common enemy that threatens the survival of both groups, only then would they find the courage to bond in friendship and alliance.

As I said, the notion of Middle East peace seems to be bumper sticker material versus on-the-ground possibility, or a science fiction story, versus a foreseeable tenable resolution.

[GZLives]

I think the difference may be that there are many - in fact polling shows the majority of Israelis wanting peace and willing to co exist.

But can you find that same sentiment on the other side? Have you ever found that sentiment?

As long as Palestinian Arabs teach their children that Jews are sub human - and they do, as long as they teach their kids that to kill a Jew martyrs them and sends them directly to Paradise, as long as they televise cartoon shows directed at toddlers portraying Jews as evil bloodthirsty demons, no one should expect anything to change nor should anyone attempt to make the two sides somehow comparable - they are absolutely not.

The Israelis were willing to compromise and coexist from day one while the Arabs were only interested in destroying them. In fact the Arabs, and the Brits were quite certain the Jews would go down in absolute defeat and that would be the end of them.

Well, too bad eh? Things just didn't work out that way and that has nothing to do with "neocons" or left right politics. It has to do with out and out ugly anti semitic hatred that the Arabs happen to be so filled with.

Today, those Palestinian Arabs are victims of their Arab breteren or their own inept and corrupt leaders who have brought them to this miserable point.

[GrainOSand]

Broad strokes make bold statements yet they lose the detail of a more detailed analysis of a situation. I find it hard to believe that there is no innocence on the Palestinian side of the question and that there is no guilt on the Israeli side. A solution that replaces tyranny with tyranny is no solution. A system that labels a people unworthy due to ethnic, religious, gender, whatever meaningless delineation, is not a just system; thus, the hypothesis that I presented. It seems that sheer terror has a way of burning through historical inability to get along. The event now referred to as 9/11 proved this in dramatic terms as I watched young and old, rich and poor, Japanese, Muslim, East Indian, Christian, European, Jew, Hindu, brown, peach, and other assorted colors of people, rush out of a burning building and down the street as men and women of all different colors and backgrounds rushed in. When the towers collapsed, everybody was the same color and every body was the same in their sadness and their horror. The differences are well documented and established. What of the things that make us the same and should we not begin the conversation from there? An invasion by hostile aliens is what 9/11 was. I pray it does not take horror and disaster for people to figure out that what is in their common interest is peace no matter their divergent viewpoints.

[thizzkid]

last time they had a truce was a few summers ago and then they went to war in Leb banon can u see it comming

[SouthJerseySteve]

Mazel Tov! Hope this truce lasts--it will show that the Middle East does NOT need the US to "butt in".

[wadenelson1]

George can't take credit for this???

[BadCompany]

He is a peace-maker.

[brizzle]

Egypt brokered the talks...

So much for George W. Bush, Diplomat.

[Satch]

Hey Pedrothemigrant.. I give it about 2 days...

[RTIII]

Great! Best of luck to all!

[BadCompany]

How did they accomplish this w/o talking to the terrists?

[dschwarz]

Israel talked to the Egyptians, who talked to the terrorists.

[BadCompany]

Whew!
That makes me feel much better.