Israel on Wednesday threw its weight behind Egyptian efforts to broker a truce with Hamas in and around Gaza but at the same time ordered its armed forces to prepare for a possible offensive against the Palestinian territory.
The Islamist movement, which has controlled the Gaza Strip since its deadly takeover last June, mocked Israel for talking of further ceasefire negotiations while still threatening military action.
A senior Israeli government official said that while there was little hope the talks would bear fruit, ”for the time being we decided to give them a chance”.
”The security Cabinet decided this morning to support Egyptian efforts to achieve calm in the south and end the daily targeting of Israeli civilians by the terrorists in Gaza,” Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s spokesperson, Mark Regev, said.
”In parallel the security Cabinet instructed the military to continue its preparations in the unfortunate event that the Egyptian track should prove to be unsuccessful,” he added.
The government made it clear its agreement to a truce remains conditional on making progress towards the release of a 21-year-old soldier held by Hamas for the past two years — a condition the Islamists have previously rejected.
Regev said the ”framework” of the talks must include ”advancing the release of Corporal Gilad Shalit”.
Hamas was dismissive of the Israeli announcement.
”The Israeli occupation itself says it is preparing a large operation in Gaza, which demonstrates that its declarations on a truce are neither realistic nor serious,” Hamas spokesperson Sami Abu Zuhri said.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, whose forces were ousted from Gaza in last June’s Hamas takeover, expressed the hope that the Israeli military ”escalation will not continue”.
”At the same time we hope the rocket fire will stop,” he said after talks with King Abdullah II in Amman.
The Jordanian monarch warned that ”the escalation in Gaza and indications of a large-scale military operation in the territory … constitute a grave danger for the security of the region and harm peace efforts”, a palace statement said.
Israel’s decision followed two days of meetings to consider options for a major ground offensive in the besieged territory in a bid to halt persistent rocket and mortar fire against southern Israel.
Continuing violence
But even as the meeting was under way the violence continued, with four Palestinians killed in Gaza and one Israeli wounded by mortar fire. Three Hamas militants were also killed on Tuesday.
One of Wednesday’s dead was a 10-year-old girl, Hadeel al-Smeiri. She died when a tank shell hit a house east of the south Gaza city of Khan Yunis. Two of her relatives were wounded.
A member of Hamas’s armed wing and another Palestinian were killed in the same area, and a fourth Palestinian was killed in an Israeli air raid on the north of the impoverished sliver of land.
The latest bloodshed came four days before the first anniversary of the Islamists’ bloody seizure of Gaza.
Israeli leaders have been warning for months that they are considering a major ground offensive aimed at ousting Gaza’s Hamas rulers.
The truce talks have dragged on for much of this year, with Israel demanding assurances that militants will not use any period of calm to rearm by smuggling in weapons from Egypt.
Hamas demands that Israel ease the blockade imposed after the Islamists seized control of Gaza and allow the opening of border posts, in particular the Rafah crossing with Egypt, Gaza’s only one bypassing Israel.
At least 499 people, nearly all Palestinians and the majority of them Gaza militants, have been killed since Israel and the Palestinian leadership resumed peace talks in November, according to an Agence France-Presse count. — AFP
