Hamas agrees to hold tentative truce

Hurriyet Daily News with wires

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Meanwhile, Israeli officials said diplomats have been instructed to highlight the plight of Israelis living under increasing rocket fire from Gaza, in a step aimed at preparing world opinion for stepped-up action by Israel's military.

The Islamists and other armed factions in Gaza have accepted "a calm for a 24-hour period following Egyptian mediation in exchange for the delivery of aid from Egypt," senior Hamas official Ayman Taha told Agence France-Presse.

But Taha warned that Hamas would resume suicide attacks if Israel made good on its threats to unleash a major assault against the Gaza Strip, where the Islamists seized power in June 2007.

"It is our right as an occupied people to defend ourselves from the occupation by all means possible including suicide attacks," he said.

The senior Hamas official also said Palestinian armed group might consider a longer truce if Israel were to lift an embargo on the impoverished territory, beginning with permission to import an aid shipment from Egypt. "Hamas and other factions agreed in order to give a chance to the Egyptian mediation and to show that the problem was always on the Israeli side," Taha told Reuters.

"If a new (truce) offer were made, which met our demands, then we would be willing to study it."

The last time Hamas carried out a suicide attack in Israel was in January 2005. Israeli foreign ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor declined to comment on the Hamas statement, saying "we have not received any announcement, neither directly or indirectly, nor via Egypt."

International support
Meanwhile, Israel yesterday kicked off a campaign to muster international support for any major offensive to try to halt rocket fire from the impoverished Palestinian territory.

With rocket fire by Gaza militants spiking in recent days and public pressure for action growing, Israeli leaders have held consultations, discussed military contingency plans and are now trying to prepare foreign governments for the possibility that the military could move beyond airstrikes against militants and act with more force, possibly even sending ground forces into the Hamas-controlled territory, reported The Associated Press. Israeli diplomats are meeting with their counterparts and decision-makers abroad as part of the new effort, spokesman Palmor said. Israel's U.N. envoy was sending a letter to Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon stressing Israel's concerns, he added.

Premier Ehud Olmert and Defense Minister Ehud Barak met last week and decided to green-light a Gaza operation, but left the timing vague.