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."
A new online voting system aimed at boosting turnout among the Philippines’ millions of overseas workers ahead of Monday’s mid-term elections has been marked by confusion and fears of disenfranchisement. Thousands of overseas Filipino workers have already cast their ballots in the race dominated by a bitter feud between President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and his impeached vice president, Sara Duterte. While official turnout figures are not yet publicly available, data from the Philippine Commission on Elections (COMELEC) showed that at least 134,000 of the 1.22 million registered overseas voters have signed up for the new online system, which opened on April 13. However,
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