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Peres
Claims Partial Pullback, Hamas to Stop Attacks If Israel Withdraws
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We will stop martyrdom operations if Israelis leave our land, Hamas leader
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JERUSALEM,
July 22 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) – Israeli Foreign Minister
Shimon Peres said Monday Israel is ready to withdraw from some
re-occupied areas of the West Bank, as resistance group Hamas said it
would consider halting bomb attacks on Israelis if Israel withdrew
from West Bank cities. On the ground, however, life remained as tough
as ever for almost a million Palestinians, news agencies reported.
Peres
told deputies from his Labor Party that the test-case withdrawal could
be first implemented in the West Bank towns of Bethlehem, Hebron and
from around Jericho if they remain quiet, according to Agence France-Presse
(AFP)
Peres
was briefing parliamentary members on the results of a meeting he held
late Saturday with a Palestinian ministerial delegation led by chief
negotiator Saeb Erakat.
The
Israeli plan, once implemented, would allow an easing of the
Israeli closure of the West Bank cities, where hundreds of thousands
of Palestinians are living under curfew in conditions Erakat described
Monday as "catastrophic."
The
Israeli army has re-occupied seven out of eight major West Bank towns
since June 19 when it launched a major offensive to stamp out
resistance groups insisting on carrying out resistance attacks both
inside Israel and against illegal Jewish settlers in the West Bank.
The
army has been imposing a strict curfew on the reoccupied cities and
towns, confining some 700,000 Palestinians to their homes for much of
the past month, keeping them from jobs and largely shutting down the
economy.
Israeli
daily newspaper Ha’aretz said Monday that the Palestinians presented
a plan whereby their security forces, undergoing a major overhaul,
would move into areas evacuated by the army to take the situation in
hand.
For its part, Hamas said Monday it would consider halting bomb attacks
on Israelis if Israel withdrew from West Bank cities and took other
measures, according to The Washington Post Monday.
"Basically
what I would say to the occupation army is to leave ... the
Palestinian cities in all the West Bank that were occupied ...,"
Hamas spiritual leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin told reporters in the Gaza
Strip.
"And
stop your aggression, demolishing homes. Release prisoners and stop
assassinations. Once the occupation and all those measures against our
people stop, we are ready to totally study stopping martyrdom
operations, in a positive way."
The
term “Martyrdom operations” used by the Hamas leader, or
“suicide bombing” used by Western media, refers to Palestinian
activists blowing themselves up among Israelis, both inside Israel and
inside the occupied territories.
Meanwhile,
Erakat told reporters Monday that the situation in Palestinian
territories that were either re-occupied or cut off from the world
became "catastrophic."
He
said 45 percent of Palestinian children under five were suffering from
malnutrition and 16,253 Palestinian homes had been destroyed by the
Israeli army since the start of the Intifada (against the Israeli
occupation) in September 2000.
Erekat,
who met Saturday with Peres, said the Palestinians wanted a full
pullout and full payment of the revenues.
"We
will not accept any partial solution, nor partial withdrawal, and even
no partial returning of our money," he told reporters in the West
Bank town of Ramallah. "Ending the occupation is the only key for
this problem."
However,
the situation on the ground was not any different as far as choking
curfews and other practices by the occupation army against the
Palestinians is concerned.
A
Palestinian activist was killed Monday and two Israeli troops injured
in fighting around the flashpoint Gush Katif settlement on the Gaza
Strip, the Israeli army said.
It
claimed the firefight erupted when an Israeli army unit attacked a
group of armed Palestinians it spotted before dawn near a military
position.
The
resistance Jihad movement said a member of its armed branch died in an
attack on a settlement, while others escaped. It promised to continue
attacks against Israel.
Palestinian
medical sources said three Palestinians were wounded in Khan Yunis,
one seriously, by fire from Israeli tanks.
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