Al-Aqsa Brigades: Israeli Withdrawal Before Operations Stop

JENIN, August 12 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - The Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, an armed offshoot of Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement, said Monday, August 12, it would not halt attacks inside Israel, unless the Jewish state withdraws from the occupied Palestinian territories.

“The Al-Aqsa Maartyrs Brigades is not going to stop bombings (inside Israel) unless Israel withdraws from the Palestinian territories, releases the prisoners and stops assassinating the Palestinian leadership,” the group said in a statement faxed to Agence France-Presse (AFP).

“We consider (Israeli Prime Minister Ariel) Sharon and his government to be responsible for the killings and for every drop of blood that is spilt on both sides,” the Brigades said, adding that it rejected “all external interference in Palestinian affairs”.

Zacharia Al-Agha, head of Fatah in the Gaza Strip and a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s executive committee, said Monday his movement had accepted the truce proposal after talks Sunday night with the PA.

“Fatah confirmed at the last meeting that it will confine its operations to the areas of the 1967 territories,” said Al-Agha.

While he said all Fatah factions would abide by the decision, he did not specifically name the Brigades, AFP reported.

The Brigades’ announcement came just hours after a top leader from the Islamic resistance movement Hamas said his group would soon give an answer to the proposal.

“We will give our answer within the coming days. Hamas is still studying the proposal,” Ismail Haniyeh told AFP.

The High Committee for National and Islamic Forces, consisting of 13 Palestinian factions, first met secretly last Wednesday, August 7, to discuss the truce proposal.

Israeli Arab MP Ahmed Tibi, who maintains contact with the Palestinian Authority, also confirmed to AFP that Hamas could sign the proposal within a “matter of days.”

“Hamas and Islamic Jihad were positively engaged in the process of preparing the document and it is their right to review it,” he said.

As talks went on behind closed doors, the bloodshed continued, with a member of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades shot dead by Israeli forces near the West Bank town of Jenin, AFP said.

Palestinian officials said all groups, including Hamas and Islamic Jihad were mulling the proposal after the talks.

Ismail Abu Shanab, a Gaza leader of Hamas, said his group was studying a plan for “a unified national leadership” that would be temporary until Palestinian elections are held in January 2003.

“The text also sees putting in place a program of reforms, notably in regards to democracy, human rights and the fight against corruption,” he told AFP.

Palestinian officials said Hamas and Fatah were holding talks on a possible truce before an Israeli air raid on Gaza killed 18 people, including a Hamas leader, on July 22, triggering calls for revenge attacks and a new upsurge in violence.

Israeli Arab deputy Ahmed Tibi, who maintains contact with the Palestinian Authority, told the daily newspaper, Ha’aretz, that Hamas could sign a draft ceasefire deal with the Palestinian Authority within a "matter of days."

Withdrawal before operations stop

As the Palestinians wrangled over the terms of a possible truce deal, Israeli forces, who have occupied the West Bank since mid-June, shot dead another Palestinian, Razan Freehat, 23, of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, Palestinian security sources said.

He was killed as the army entered the village of Yanun in the northern West Bank. Five other Palestinians were arrested in the operation, the sources said.

The economic cost of the protracted war of attrition also made itself felt for Sharon, who reportedly threatened to hold snap elections in January next year if parliament fails to pass his 2003 austerity budget.

The belt-tightening bill was narrowly adopted by the broad-based national unity cabinet on July 30, with ministers from the center-left Labor party and the right-wing ultra Orthodox Jewish party Shas voting against it.

Sharon recently told Shas leader Eli Yishai that he intended to "go to the wire" to get the budget approved, Israeli public radio reported.

It added that, if the bill is voted down after it goes before parliament in mid-October, Sharon intends to sack the ministers of those parties that did not support him and ask President Moshe Katsav to dissolve parliament and call for elections in 90 days, or mid-January.