Hamas offers Gaza truce with Israel

By Jonathan Wright

CAIRO (Reuters) - The Palestinian Islamist group Hamas on Thursday proposed a six-month truce between Israel and Palestinians in the Gaza Strip with an option to extend it to include Palestinians in the West Bank.

Former Palestinian Foreign Minister Mahmoud al-Zahar, speaking in Cairo after meeting Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman, said the truce must include an end to the Israeli blockade of the coastal strip.

"The movement agrees to a truce in the Gaza Strip ... fixed at six months, during which period Egypt will work to extend the truce to the West Bank," Zahar said, reading from a Hamas statement.

"The truce must be mutual and simultaneous and the blockade must be lifted and the crossing points opened, including the Rafah crossing point (between Gaza and Egypt)."

Other Palestinian factions, including the Islamic Jihad militant group and leftist groups based in Damascus, had preliminarily approved the offer, Zahar said.

Suleiman, Egypt's main contact with Hamas and Israel, had agreed to call Palestinian factions to Egypt to discuss the offer and ensure Palestinian consensus, Zahar said.

"It was agreed with Minister Suleiman to invite the Palestinian factions next Tuesday and Wednesday to discuss the paper presented by our side," Zahar said.

The Egyptian official would then contact the Israelis to ensure that they are committed to the truce and to fix a date for it to start, the Hamas leader added.

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.

Israeli forces have been killing Hamas members in Gaza and Hamas has been firing crude rockets into nearby parts of Israel.

Dozens of Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza in the past 10 days. Three Israeli soldiers were killed on the border with Gaza on April 16.

ISRAEL SCEPTICAL

The Hamas truce proposals are a shift from its previous position, which was that a truce should begin and apply at the same time in both Gaza and the West Bank.

Israel says it is ready for "quiet" at the Gaza border, but that it would require a complete halt to attacks by Hamas on Israelis, a stop to cross-border rocket fire from all Palestinian groups and an end to weapon smuggling into Gaza.

Israel's UN ambassador said a truce would give Hamas a chance to regroup.