 Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal
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JAFFA, Israel – Hamas is willing to renew an expiring six-month “truce” with Israel but is delaying in hopes of extracting more concessions from the Jewish state, according to sources close to Hamas in the Gaza Strip speaking to WND.
Last June, Israel agreed to an Egyptian-brokered ceasefire with Hamas terrorists in Gaza that called for a halt to all Palestinian terror attacks, including rocket firings against bordering Israeli civilian population centers, in exchange for a cessation of Israeli anti-terror operations in Gaza. Israel mostly refrained from operating in the Gaza Strip with the exception of a few isolated, extenuating cases, such as to close tunnels being used by Hamas to attempt border attacks, while Palestinians in Gaza have sporadically fired rockets into Israel. The rocket firings have become more frequent in recent days.
Now, with the “truce” set to expire Friday, Hamas is playing hardball.
Khaled Mashaal, the chief of Hamas who lives under protection in Syria, was quoted yesterday by a Hamas television station in Damascus as saying, “There will be no renewal of the ‘calm’ after it expires.”
Mashaal, incidentally, made the statement hours after a meeting he held with former President Jimmy Carter.
But then a Hamas spokesman in Gaza announced no official decision to end the truce had been reached.
According to sources close to Hamas speaking to WND, the terror group wants to extend the cease-ffire but is holding out for better terms than just a freeze on Israeli military operations in Gaza. The sources said Hamas now wants an agreement with Israel whereby the Gaza-Israel borders will be more open, including for commerce.
With the exception of crucial humanitarian aid, Israel has tightly closed its borders with Gaza after Hamas seized control of the territory in the summer of 2007. An agreement to reopen the borders would be a major victory for Hamas and would help endear the group to the local population.
Hamas has previously said it wants to extend the cease-fire from the Gaza Strip to the West Bank, which is said to be controlled by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’ rival Fatah party, but according to sources close to Hamas, the Islamist organization may delay this stipulation.
According to an Israeli security official, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is pushing Hamas through Egyptian mediators to free kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Schalit as part of the truce negotiations. The official would not say whether Israel was willing to offer flexibility on the Gaza-Israel borders.
Yesterday, Foreign Minister Tzippi Livni warned that if Hamas “continues to encourage terror in Gaza,” Israel will use all means at its disposal to respond.
But security officials said it was unlikely the Israeli government would authorize any major military operation in Gaza anytime soon. The officials warned that Hamas used the past six months of the expiring truce to rearm and prepare for a large confrontation. They said Hamas would utilize any more downtime provided by a renewed cease-fire to continue the mass buildup of arms in Gaza.
In a clear sign to Hamas that Israel intends to bargain and not fight, Major General Amos Gilad, the head of political military policy at Israel’s Defense Ministry, flew to Cairo yesterday to meet top Egyptian intelligence officials to discuss the future of the truce. A Defense Ministry official told reporters Gilad traveled to Egypt to discuss routine matters, but security sources confirmed to WND that Gilad was in Egypt to broker the cease-fire.
Those security sources warned that Hamas may attempt a series of anti-Israel terrorist attacks in the coming days to prove it means business during the negotiations.
