Gaza ceasefire holds
Israel re-entered Gaza in June
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Sunday, 26, Nov 2006 08:10
Hopes of achieving peace in the Middle East strengthened today after a new ceasefire agreement appeared to hold between the Israelis and the Palestinians.
The agreement came into force at 06:00 local time (04:00) GMT this morning after Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas called Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert yesterday telling him that Palestinian militant groups had agreed to cease rocket attacks on the Jewish state, launched from within Gaza.
Following the deal reached following talks between insurgent groups and Palestinian prime minister Ismail Haniyeh, of the militant faction Hamas, Mr Olmert agreed to withdraw Israeli forces from the Gaza strip, ending a five month military offensive which has renewed tensions in the region.
But the ceasefire was almost immediately threatened after militant group Islamic Jihad claimed it had fired three rockets from Gaza into southern Israel around two hours after the start of the truce.
A spokesman for the radical faction denied that it was party to the ceasefire, with the group vowing that it would not agree to end rocket attacks on Israel unless the Jewish state also ended military activity in the occupied West Bank.
"There is no way to talk about a truce as long as aggression continues on any of our land," Islamic Jihad said in a statement.
The armed wing of the governing Hamas movement also claimed to have fired two rockets into Israel, stressing that they had continued their attacks because some Israeli troops remained within Gaza following the start of the ceasefire agreement.
"Let's hope that's just the problems of the beginning,' Israeli government spokeswoman Miri Eisin was quoted as saying by the Associated Press.
Despite warning that Israel would respond if attacked, both sides have adhered to the truce's terms, which have seen Israeli forces withdraw completely from the Gaza Strip for the first time in five months.
A spokesman for the White House had earlier indicated that the United States saw the ceasefire as a "positive step forward" in efforts to achieve peace in the Middle East, ahead of a visit by president George W Bush to the region later this week.
Despite international condemnation of its military offensive in Gaza, Israel had threatened to step up its operations there last week following an upsurge in rocket attacks against the Jewish state.
Israeli troops re-entered Gaza in June, just over a year after it ended a 38-year occupation of the region, with troops sent back into the area in a bid to secure the release of Israeli soldier, Corporal Gilad Shalit, who was kidnapped by militants in a cross-border raid.
It is understood that over 400 Palestinians, almost half of them civilians, have been killed in Gaza since the re-instigation of Israeli military activities in the region, during which three Israeli soldiers have also been killed.
Efforts to achieve a lasting peace between both sides come as Palestinian president Mr Abbas seeks to negotiate the establishment of a more moderate Palestinian government with current ruling group Hamas, in order to try and persuade western powers and Israel to end punitive economic sanctions against the Palestinians.
The sanctions were imposed after Hamas, a rival to Mr Abbas' less radical Fatah movement, were successful in parliamentary elections at the beginning of this year, with countries such as the US classing the ruling militant group as a terrorist organisation.