Middle East
Palestinian groups want truce to include West Bank
By Alaa Shahine
Apr 29, 2008, 17:30

CAIRO (Reuters) - Several Palestinian groups said on Tuesday a possible truce with Israel must include all Palestinian territories simultaneously, opposing a Hamas suggestion that it start in the Gaza Strip.

"Any reasonable Palestinian should assume that this is essential," Abou Adnan al-Baba, a member of the central command of the Popular Resistance Committees, said in Cairo before a meeting between the groups and Egyptian intelligence officials to reach a Palestinian consensus on the ceasefire proposal.

Egypt invited the groups for talks after Hamas, the Islamist group that controls the Gaza Strip, proposed a six-month truce between Israel and Palestinians in Gaza, with an option to extend it to Palestinians in the West Bank.

Hamas, which was not at Tuesday's meeting, said the ceasefire would also include an end to the Israeli-led blockade of the coastal strip.

Israel has dismissed the proposal as a Hamas ploy to gain time and prepare for more fighting.

The truce proposal emerged from several rounds of talks between Egypt and Hamas, with the blessing of the United States, which calls Hamas a terrorist group.

The failure of Palestinians to reach common ground or Israeli rejection of the truce would complicate Egyptian efforts to end violence in the Gaza Strip.

The talks in Cairo were overshadowed by the killing of six Palestinians, including four children and their mother, as they were having breakfast on Monday in the Gaza town of Beit Hanoun.

Israel said the deaths were tragic and occurred when an aircraft fired at two Palestinian militants carrying munitions, which exploded and destroyed the home of the family.

Maher al-Tahir, politburo member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, told Reuters his group doubted any truce with Israel was viable.

"Israel launches aggressions against the Palestinian people every day and has not committed to any truce," he said.

Hamas said several Palestinian factions, including Islamic Jihad and leftist groups based in Syria, had preliminarily approved the offer.

But Ramzi Rabah, a senior member of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, said starting the truce only in the Gaza Strip would leave the West Bank "prey to settlement activities and aggressions".

Israel pulled troops and settlers out of the Gaza Strip in 2005 but still controls its borders and has tightened its restrictions since Hamas seized control there last year.

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