Gaza groups want calm with Israel: Hamas leader

By Nidal al-Mughrabi

GAZA (Reuters) - Palestinian armed groups in Gaza remain committed to a truce with Israel if the Jewish state reciprocates, Hamas's Gaza leader said Friday, even as militants launched more attacks from the coastal territory.

Gaza militants fired a rocket and two mortars at Israel, continuing almost daily attacks over the past 17 days, none of which has inflicted major casualties.

"I have met with armed factions over the past two days and they stated their position clearly: they are committed to calm as long as (Israel) abides by it," said Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas's most senior representative in the Gaza Strip.

Both Israel and Hamas have signaled they want to restore the Egyptian-brokered ceasefire, which began on June 19 and calls on Hamas to halt rocket fire and other attacks against the Jewish state.

It also demands Israel gradually ease the blockade it tightened on the Gaza Strip after Hamas Islamists routed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's more secular Fatah forces in the impoverished territory in June 2007.

Abbas, who sacked a Hamas-led government after the Gaza takeover and formed a new administration in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, plans on remaining in office until 2010, a decision likely to stoke tensions with his Islamist rivals.

Abbas says Palestinian parliamentary and presidential elections should be held together in 2010. Hamas, which defeated Fatah in parliamentary elections in 2006, says Abbas's term ends on January 9, 2009.

"When the leadership of the Palestinian Authority expires after 12 a.m. on January 9, the president of the Palestinian people will no longer be Mahmoud Abbas," senior Hamas official Mushir al-Masri told thousands of Hamas supporters at a rally in Gaza.

Masri accused Abbas's government of making concessions to Israel and said it would be "removed from the West Bank as it had been removed from Gaza."

Israel closed its border crossings with Gaza on November 4, cutting food and fuel supplies, when its troops raided the coastal enclave to destroy what the army described as a tunnel built by militants to kidnap Israeli soldiers. The raid was followed by militant rocket and mortar fire.

Over the last two weeks of cross-border fighting, more than a dozen Palestinian militants have been killed and scores of rockets and mortar shells have been launched at Israel.

Friday, Gaza militants fired one rocket toward the Israeli coastal city of Ashkelon, northeast of the Gaza Strip, and two mortar shells at troops operating along the border, an Israeli army spokesman said.

Middle East peace envoy Tony Blair called on both sides to end the violence and said the five-month-old truce has been "crucial" in providing security to Israelis and Palestinians.

"The only lasting solution to the desperate situation in Gaza will require an end to terrorist attacks, continued restraint, and the opening of the crossings," Blair said in a statement.

Haniyeh, who was speaking after Friday prayers in Gaza, also sought to calm tensions which have arisen with Egypt following a breakdown of reconciliation talks between Hamas and Fatah which the Egyptians have been mediating.