Gaza militants fired two rockets into southern Israel on Friday, only hours after a senior Hamas member said the Islamists had accepted an Egyptian-brokered truce for Palestinian territory.
An Israeli army spokesperson said the short-range rockets exploded near the city of Sderot — a frequent target of attacks from the Hamas-ruled enclave — causing no casualties.
There has been sporadic rocket fire, and Israeli air strikes, since January 18, when Israel and Hamas declared ceasefires to end a three-week war that killed more than 1 300 Palestinians and 13 Israelis.
The latest attacks came just hours after Egypt’s official news agency Mena said Hamas had accepted an 18-month truce with Israel in and around Gaza, with an announcement to be made soon.
”We have agreed to the truce with the Israeli side for a year and a half [in return] for the opening of all six passages between the Gaza Strip and Israel,” Hamas’s deputy leader Mussa Abu Marzuk said late on Thursday.
Egypt will announce the agreement after contacting Israel and the Palestinian factions, he told Mena after talks with Cairo mediators.
Israel has yet to comment.
Israel imposed a crippling blockade of Gaza after Hamas seized control of the territory in a week of vicious street battles in June 2007, ousting Fatah loyalists of Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas.
Ending the blockade has been a key Hamas demand and the reason it says it launched rockets and mortar rounds into Israel after another Egyptian brokered six-month truce that expired in December.
During the three-week war Egypt proposed a three-point plan to end the fighting and intelligence chief Omar Suleiman has met separately with Israeli and Palestinian officials to negotiate a permanent truce.
Abu Marzuk said difficulties that had prevented an agreement have been resolved, especially the issue of captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, who also holds French nationality.
Israel has also insisted that Hamas release Shalit — captured by Palestinian militants in June 2006 — as a condition for ending the blockade.
Marzuk said Shalit has been removed from the truce deal and that he will be released in exchange for Palestinian prisoners — remarks echoed by Hamas’s representative in Lebanon Osama Hamdan.
Hamdan also said Egypt had offered ”guarantees” for the passage of much-needed supplies for Gaza’s 1,5-million population, most of whom depend entirely on outside aid.
Egypt’s three-point plan for Gaza also includes efforts to resume reconciliation talks between rivals Hamas and Fatah that would lead to the creation of a unity government. — AFP
