The Hamas militant group has agreed to halt mortar and rocket fire on Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip, a deal meant to save a truce threatened by three consecutive days of violence, the Palestinian Interior Ministry said yesterday.
Hamas agreed to stop the fire at a late-night meeting on Thursday between Interior Minister Nasser Yousef and the Islamic group's leadership, said ministry spokesman Tawfiq Abu Khoussa.
Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas said Saturday that the fighting had subsided, and he didn't expect it to overshadow his May 26 meeting with US President George W. Bush.
PHOTO: AP
Israel threatened harsh retaliation after the fighting erupted Wednesday, and warned the Palestinians that a cease-fire declared in February was in danger of collapse. Since Wednesday, Israeli troops have killed three Palestinian militants. Militants have fired 60 mortar shells and homemade rockets at Gaza settlements.
The violence erupted after a long spell of relative quiet in nearly five years of fighting, leading Israeli security officials to speculate a resurgence of fighting could complicate a plan to withdraw this summer from all the Gaza Strip and four West Bank settlements.
Hamas is challenging Abbas' ruling Fatah party in a parliamentary election scheduled for mid-July, leading Israeli security officials to speculate Hamas violence is meant to strengthen the group and embarrass Abbas ahead of the vote.
"Our brothers in Hamas reaffirmed their commitment to the quiet," Abu Khoussa said. Asked if Hamas had agreed to stop firing at Jewish settlements, he said: "Yes. They agreed not to do that."
The Burmese junta has said that detained former leader Aung San Suu Kyi is “in good health,” a day after her son said he has received little information about the 80-year-old’s condition and fears she could die without him knowing. In an interview in Tokyo earlier this week, Kim Aris said he had not heard from his mother in years and believes she is being held incommunicado in the capital, Naypyidaw. Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, was detained after a 2021 military coup that ousted her elected civilian government and sparked a civil war. She is serving a
China yesterday held a low-key memorial ceremony for the 1937 Nanjing Massacre, with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) not attending, despite a diplomatic crisis between Beijing and Tokyo over Taiwan. Beijing has raged at Tokyo since Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi last month said that a hypothetical Chinese attack on Taiwan could trigger a military response from Japan. China and Japan have long sparred over their painful history. China consistently reminds its people of the 1937 Nanjing Massacre, in which it says Japanese troops killed 300,000 people in what was then its capital. A post-World War II Allied tribunal put the death toll
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