Abbas appeals to militants to renew truce with Israel
PA President calls on Palestinians to take first step, initiate month-long ceasefire to allow for negotiations
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas appealed to militant groups Monday to halt their attacks on Israel - urging them to accept his plan for renewing a cease-fire even if Israel is cool to the idea. alestinian militant groups have said there could be no truce if Israel keeps up its attacks and refuses to extend any a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip to the West Bank.
But in an interview with Associated Press Television News, Abbas said the militants should take the first step. Under his plan, Gaza militants would halt rocket fire for a month to allow for negotiations on a more comprehensive truce that would include the West Bank.
"The truce project means all acts by all parties stop, the Palestinians first and the Israelis, so we can move after to the West Bank," Abbas said. "Israel ... Can do what it wants, whenever it wants, but we say we should do our duties and put the ball in the Israeli court."
A previous ceasefire in Gaza lasted for five months, but unraveled earlier this month when Hamas - locked in heavy infighting with Abbas' Fatah - renewed rocket attacks into Israel, prompting an intensive Israeli
air campaign.
About 50 Palestinians, most of them militants, and two Israeli civilians have died in the fighting.
Israeli officials have been cool to the idea of a new ceasefire, saying the last one was a "sham," nut haven't ruled it out. They have demanded a halt to the rocket fire.
Shortly before midnight Monday Israeli planes attacked Hamas posts in the northern Gaza Strip. Palestinian security officials said the strikes damaged a building used by Hamas militiamen and adjoining Islamic charity offices, slightly wounding four people who were treated on the scene.
A delegation from Hamas' Syria-based political bureau, was scheduled to head to Egypt on Tuesday to discuss a possible new truce with Israel as well as a halt to the Palestinian infighting.
Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit on Monday urged both Israelis and Palestinians to end the latest wave of violence.
A foreign ministry statement released after Aboul Gheit met Palestinian Deputy Prime Minister Azzam al-Ahmed, of Fatah, quoted the Egyptian as also calling on Palestinians to stop fighting one another.
"Palestinian infighting only benefits the Israeli side and supports its pretext that there is no negotiation
partner," It quoted Aboul Gheit as saying.
