Palestinian President Yasser Arafat said yesterday that Palestinian factions could announce a truce in the coming hours, but the radical Hamas and Islamic Jihad groups said it was still a matter of days.
"For the moment there is no official decision on this issue, but there could be an announcement in the next few hours," Arafat told reporters here after meeting with Irish Foreign Minister Brian Cowen.
PHOTO: AP
Palestinian Foreign Minister Nabil Shaath said moments later that "the document is ready, but we still don't know when it will be announced, today, in the next few days or in a week."
Arafat's Fatah, the hardline Hamas and Islamic Jihad and other Palestinian factions have been discussing a truce for weeks, following a proposal by Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmud Abbas.
But Palestinian source close to the negotiations said "the agreement will be announced possibly in two days because Hamas and Islamic Jihad want to submit the final version to the Egyptians, the Saudis and the Qataris."
"They will present it to Mahmud Abbas tomorrow," the source added on condition of anonymity.
But a senior Hamas official, Abdul Aziz al-Rantissi, said his movement would make a final decision on the truce "in the coming days."
Rantissi, speaking to reporters in Gaza City, said: "The discussions and agreements [on a truce] are over, but steps must be taken within the movement before a final decision, which will be made in the coming days."
Giving no details of these steps, Rantissi said Hamas would inform Arafat and Egypt, which has been acting as a broker, of its decision as soon as it was reached.
And the leader of the rival Islamic Jihad, Mohammad al-Hindi, said that "our internal discussions will soon end, but the announcement won't be within hours."
Hindi hinted Arafat and Shaath were jumping the gun slightly and said: "We don't have a final draft thus far."
"There will be meeting today in Damascus between the three factions to discuss the draft and maybe another meeting tomorrow," he said.
"We are waiting to hear the views of some jailed [militants] and of those wanted [by Israel] and we don't think this will happen within a few hours. We will announce our position when we're ready and this will be in a few days," he added.
According to an AFP correspondent who saw the final version of the ceasefire agreement, the introduction stresses the need for a period of calm.
"The Palestinian organizations announce the suspension of their operations against Israel for three months in exchange for a cessation of Israeli assassinations of Palestinian militants, an end to incursions, a release of prisoners and an end to house demolitions," the text says.
The factions were still debating whether to include in the document an article defining breaches of the truce by Israel, according to Fatah Member of Parliament Qaddura Fares.
Despite the promises, violence continued. A Palestinian killed an Israeli man and seriously wounded a second -- both telephone company employees -- in a shooting attack in northern Israel near the West Bank border. Security guards wounded and arrested the assailant, a member of a militia linked to Arafat's Fatah movement.
Palestinians also fired several mortar shells and homemade rockets at a Jewish settlement in Gaza and an Israeli community bordering the strip. In the West Bank, Israel razed the house of a Hamas militant who allegedly recruited suicide bombers.
A truce might help end 33 months of violence, a necessary prelude to the US-backed "road map" plan aimed at establishing a Palestinian state by 2005.
The plan requires the Palestinians to break up the armed groups, but Abbas has ruled out using force for fear of civil war.
US National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice is to arrive later this week for meetings with Israeli and Palestinian leaders.
Israel has said it cannot give a blanket promise to halt strikes against Palestinians planning attacks as long as Palestinian security forces don't act against the armed groups.
It wants the armed groups dismantled, as called for in the road map.
US President George W. Bush, siding with Israel, said Wednesday that "in order for there to be peace in the Middle East, we must see organizations such as Hamas dismantled, and then we'll have peace, we'll have a chance for peace."
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