GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — Hamas and other Palestinian factions in Gaza say they will give Israel a one-week ceasefire starting Sunday, giving Israel one week to pull out the troops from Gaza.
A senior Hamas official also said the group’s wing in Syria agreed to a weeklong cease-fire.
Hamas’ Syrian-based deputy leader, speaking for the militant Palestinian factions, said on Syrian television that the cease-fire will give Israel time to withdraw and open all the border crossings to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza.
Hamas officials say a longer cease-fire will be conditional on Israel withdrawing from Gaza the troops it sent into the strip two weeks ago.
News of the cease-fire came after militants in Hamas-ruled Gaza fired salvoes of rockets into southern Israel on Sunday, defying a unilateral cease-fire called by Israel and threatening to reignite three weeks of violence that Palestinian medics say has killed more than 1,000 people and turned Gaza’s streets into battlegrounds.
An Israeli security chief told Cabinet ministers the military operation “is not over” and that the next few days would be critical to determining whether it would be relaunched.
“Israel’s decision allows it to respond and renew fire at our enemies, the different terror organizations in the Gaza Strip, as long as they continue attacking,” Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said at the start of the weekly Cabinet session.
“This morning some of them continued their fire, provoking what we had warned of,” Olmert said. “This cease-fire is fragile and we must examine it minute by minute, hour by hour.”
Government spokesman Mark Regev would not say what level of violence would provoke Israel to call off the cease-fire.
The cease-fire went into effect at 2 a.m. Sunday local time after three weeks of fighting that killed some 1,200 Palestinians, about half of them civilians, according to Palestinian and United Nations officials. At least 13 Israelis also died, according to the government.
In announcing the truce late Saturday, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Israel would withhold fire after achieving its goals and more.
“Hamas was hit hard, in its military arms and in its government institutions. Its leaders are in hiding and many of its men have been killed,” Olmert said.
-FOX News
are these guys ever gonna learn that what they do again and again just bad for jews
i am sad and sickened that these olmert, livni and barak types, are allowed to get way again and again, with not finishing the job. they know whats ahead and yet they do it over and over again. what poseses people to be so self distructive!?????????
again we dont hold justice we have to wait for hamas to decide what how much fire they can give to jews