Israeli forces killed three Palestinian gunmen in the northern part of the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip on Tuesday near a border crossing with Israel, Palestinian health officials and the Israeli army said.
Islamic Jihad and an armed group belonging to the Fatah faction said three of their fighters were killed while trying to attack an army base near the Erez crossing. An Israeli army spokeswoman said the gunmen were hit from the air and by ground forces near the border fence.
Truce agreement
Meanwhile, a spokesman for Hamas in Gaza Strip said Tuesday that a deal on a ceasefire between Palestinian groups and Israel, through Egypt, has not been finalized yet. Earlier, the Egyptian Al-Ahram newspaper had reported that Egypt and Hamas have agreed on a ceasefire and that the Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman is expected to visit Israel soon to present the main points. "The report is inaccurate; Hamas still waits for an answer (from Israel) to a truce offer presented earlier (by Egypt) to the movement," Ismail Radwan, Hamas spokesman intold reporters.
"We can't say that there is an agreement on ceasefire before seeing a commitment to implement the agreement. The problem is with the Zionist side, and so far, I can't say that there is (Israeli) equanimity," conveyed the Hamas official. According to him, the Palestinian side conditioned that any ceasefire agreement with Israel "should be comprehensive, mutual and synchronous and guarantees a complete lifting of the blockade and reopening the border crossings."
Unilateral ceasefire
On Monday, head of Hamas' political bureau Khaled Mishaal affirmed that his Movement was amenable to establishing a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders with Jerusalem as its capital but without recognizing the state of Israel. Mishaal's remarks were made in a press conference he held in the Syrian capital Damascus where he also emphasized the right of the Palestinian refugees to return to their homeland in occupied Palestine.
He also explained that his Movement has "politely" turned down a request by former US president Jimmy Carter to announce a unilateral ceasefire for 30 days, underlining that the Palestinian rocket attacks on Israeli positions and on the Israeli settlements around the Gaza Strip were "reaction rather than an action".
He noted that Hamas had declared a unilateral ceasefire more than once in the past, but the Israeli government had never respected or reciprocated those steps.
Mishaal and Carter met twice in Damascus over weekend despite strong objection from the US administration and the Israeli government. "Our main objective of reaching a comprehensive truce with Israel was to protect our Palestinian people, to lift the siege, and to open the Rafah crossing point, which spurred us to reject Carter's proposal", asserted Mishaal during the news conference.
Concerning the opening of the vital Rafah crossing point, Mishaal underlined that the crossing point should be permanently opened being a purely Palestinian-Egyptian crossing point.
