A senior official in the Hamas-led Palestinian government said
on Sunday that Palestinian militant groups were willing to reach a
ceasefire with Israel if the Jewish state stopped aggressions
against the Palestinian people.
"The groups are ready to agree to a ceasefire with Israel if it
stops all kinds of aggressions," Mohammed Awad, Secretary General
of the Hamas-led cabinet, told reporters in Gaza.
Awad also revealed that ceasefire talks had been held among
Palestinian factions for a long time.
But he also said that the ongoing Israeli offensive in the Gaza
Strip "justified Palestinian attacks on the Jewish state as an act
of self-defense."
Earlier in the day, Nabil Shaath, a senior member of Palestinian
President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah movement, told the pan-Arab
television channel al-Jazeera that Fatah was ready to accept a
ceasefire and begin peace talks with Israel.
But he stressed that the ceasefire must be mutual.
"All Palestinian factions, including Fatah and Hamas, are ready
to engage themselves in a calmness to end the crisis, but Israel
has to accept and abide by the calmness too," he said.
Israel has continued a four-week-long military operation in the
Gaza Strip, which was launched three days after three Palestinian
groups including Hamas' armed wing captured an Israeli soldier and
killed two others in a cross-border attack on June 25.
The captors have demanded Israel release more than
1,000prisoners in Israeli jails in exchange for the hostage, but
were refused.
Israel says the Gaza offensive is aimed to free the abducted
soldier and halt Palestinian rocket attacks.
(Xinhua News Agency July 24, 2006)
