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Peace deal looks set to stick, despite lastest killings

Palestinians carry the body of militants killed by Israeli troops, during their funeral at Noseirat camp in Gaza Strip yesterday. The men died in a clash as Israeli troops surrounded the family home of Hamas explosives expert Adnan al-Ghoul. PHOTO: REUTERS

Islamic militants have accepted a proposal to halt attacks on Israelis for three months, a senior militia official said yesterday, providing the first confirmation from the Gaza Strip that agreement has been reached.

A formal truce announcement is to be made tomorrow, according to officials close to the talks.

The militia official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that the "trilateral document is now ready," referring to the agreement, which asks armed groups to halt attacks on Israelis for three months, and demands that Israel stop all military strikes against Palestinians.

The agreement was negotiated by Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Palestinian President Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement.

News of the militants' acceptance of the truce proposal came just hours after four Palestinians and an Israeli soldier were killed in a firefight as Israeli soldiers raided two homes in a hunt for a top Hamas bombmaker yesterday.

Hamas' response was muted, suggesting a deal between Palestinian leaders and armed groups on suspending attacks against Israelis wouldn't unravel.

In the two-hour battle, soldiers blew up a house and fired more than a dozen tank shells, as combat helicopters fired machine guns toward groups of dozens of gunmen. The target of the raid, Adnan al-Ghoul, also known as "The Engineer," was not present.

Israel has shrugged off the emerging truce as an internal Palestinian matter, and has said the hunt for militants would not cease.

"Such operations will continue until we have a ceasefire," said Avi Pazner, an Israeli government spokesman.

"If and when the ceasefire will be put into effect, then we will look again at that kind of [operation]," he said.

Other Israeli officials have said that even if a truce is declared, Israel would still go after militants it felt were threatening its security.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said on Thursday that Palestinians must understand that the "long arm of the Israeli defense forces can hit terrorists anywhere, anytime."

Also yesterday, Israeli-Palestinian negotiations on the terms of an Israeli troop pullback in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank town of Bethlehem -- in line with a US-backed peace plan -- yielded "real progress," a Palestinian official said.

Negotiators resolved the key sticking point, control over the main north-south road in Gaza, and another meeting was scheduled for later yesterday to conclude a deal, the official said.

A troop pullback would be the first major step by Israel toward implementing the peace plan, which calls on Israel to return to positions it held before the outbreak of fighting in September 2000.

The plan also requires Palestinian security forces to dismantle militias, but Palestinian leaders have said they will not launch a crackdown.

An Israeli pullback, coupled with a promise by Palestinian militants to halt attacks on Israelis for three months, could be a major boost for Washington's peace initiative, the "road map" to Palestinian statehood by 2005. The plan was launched by US President George W. Bush on June 4, but implementation has been halting until now.

US National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice is to arrive in the region today, as Bush's personal envoy, to talk to the Palestinian and Israeli prime ministers about the plan. En route to the Middle East, Rice called on the EU to outlaw the political wing of Hamas to dry up the flow of donations to the group, which has killed hundreds of Israelis in bombings and shootings.
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