CAIRO,
June 28 (IslamOnline.net) - Differences between the Palestinian Fatah
movement and the resistance group Hamas were delaying the announcement
of the envisaged Palestinian-Israeli truce, well-informed Palestinian
sources told IslamOnline.net Saturday, June 28.
Egypt
Qatar and Saudi Arabia received Saturday two divergent truce blueprints,
one from Hamas proposing a three-month truce and the other from Fatah,
suggesting its extension to six months.
Egypt,
a number of Arab countries and Palestinian powers are engaged in
painstaking efforts to bridge the gap between the two blueprints, the
sources told IOL.
Fatah's
blueprint, a copy of which was obtained by IOL, features an
all-inclusive initiative that provides for an unconditional truce and a
six-months halt of all military operations.
It
also exhorts the world community to force Israel to implement a number
of Palestinian demands, chief among which an immediate cessation of all
kinds of aggressions, including assassinations, detentions, deportation
and massacres against the Palestinians in addition to lifting the siege
imposed on the Palestinian people and their democratically elected
leadership, in reference to President Yasser Arafat.
It
its drafted truce, Fatah demands "freeing all Palestinian prisoners
and protecting all Christian and Muslim sacred places, atop of which
Al-Haram Al-Sharief, Al-Ibrahimi Mosque, the Church of the Nativity and
the Church of Holy Sepulture."
It
also called for "immediate end of land confiscation and settlement
building; withdrawal of Israeli troops to pre-September 28, 200 borders;
implementation of the roadmap and dispatch of international monitors to
supervise its adoption in accordance with relevant U.N. Security Council
resolutions."
Conditioned
Truce
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"Cairo, no
matter what it would do, will not be capable of ironing out such
differences, which could only be contained by Palestinian
factions," Sulieman said
|
In
a truce blueprint said to be endorsed by the Islamic Jihad, Hamas
proposes a conditional three-month truce and warns that if Israel fails
to meet a number of conditions, Palestinian resistance factions will
disavow the truce.
It
made the ceasefire conditional on "an immediate halt of Israeli
aggression on the Palestinian people, individual assassinations, mass
massacres, detentions, deportations and release of all Palestinian
prisoners."
Hamas
also underlined that Israel must refrain from tampering with Islamic and
Christian holy places in general and Al-Haram Al-Sharief in particular.
In
their truce blueprints, both Fatah and Hamas said their initiatives stem
from a keen desire to salvage "national unity and to make Israel
miss out on the opportunity of pitting the Palestinians against each
other."
Hamas,
however, did not tackle the implementation of the roadmap or an Israeli
commitment to a Palestinian state by 2005 with Al-Quds (occupied
Jerusalem) as its capital.
The
well-placed sources told IOL that Hamas and Fatah are disagree on the
place of announcing the truce.
Hamas
insists on unfolding the long-awaited truce in Gaza City in order not to
give Cairo a superior status to other Arab capitals which brokered the
truce, like Doha and Riyadh.
But
President Arafat believes that making the truce public in the Egyptian
capital with the presence of all Palestinian 12 factions, which took
part in the Cairo-hosted inter-Palestinian dialogue last January, would
give it momentum.
Palestinian
sources expected the announcement of the truce to be delayed for at
least two days until bridging differences.
For
his part, Fahd Sulieman, a member of the Democratic Front for the
Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) politburo, told IOL in exclusive
statements that Hamas protested Fatah's blueprint, especially after
receiving promises from some of the brokers that its blueprint would be
endorsed.
"Cairo,
no matter what it would do, will not be capable of ironing out such
differences, which could only be contained by Palestinian
factions," Sulieman said.
He
also asserted the importance of holding a meeting that would group
Fatah, Hamas, the Islamic Jihad, the DFLP and the Popular Front for the
Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) to reach a halfway deal.
Palestinian
sources told IOL that the Islamic Jihad had entrusted Hamas with
drafting the truce and said it would accept any deal hammered out by
Hamas.
They
added that Khaled Mashal, a member of Hamas politburo, and Ramadan
Shalah, Jihad Secretary General, okayed Hamas blueprint during their
meeting in Damascus last week.
A
Hamas delegation grouping its representatives in Beirut and Tehran,
Osama Hamdan and Emad al-Alami, arrived in Cairo late Friday, June 27,
to keep Egyptian officials posted on the blueprint, Palestinian sources
told IOL.
They
added that a delegation of Jihad led by its deputy secretary general,
Ziad Nakhalla, is due in Cairo later on Saturday, for the same purpose.
