ISRAEL:EHUD OLMERT, the Israeli prime minister, insisted yesterday that he was not negotiating a ceasefire with Hamas, but he also said that if the Islamic movement ceased firing rockets into Israel, the Israeli military would halt attacks in the Gaza Strip.
Mr Olmert's denial that a truce was being mediated followed Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas's statement that an agreement was in the works and newspaper reports quoting unnamed Israeli officials saying that an unofficial understanding had been reached with Hamas on rules of engagement."There is no deal, there are no negotiations, either direct or indirect," Mr Olmert said.
"If the terror stops, if the Qassams stop landing on residents of Sderot and if Grads stop landing on Ashkelon . . . Israel will have no reason to fight the terror organisations," the prime minister added.
After Israel killed five Hamas militants in an aerial strike in late February in Gaza and Hamas fired dozens of rockets into southern Israel, Mr Olmert gave the go-ahead for a raid deep into the coastal strip in which over 100 Palestinians and two Israeli soldiers were killed. But Israel withdrew its troops last week and in the last few days Hamas has almost completely halted the rocket fire.
The visit here last week by US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice and the fact that Israeli envoys and Hamas officials have been in Egypt for separate talks with Egyptian officials in recent days have also given rise to reports that a deal is in the works to end the violence.
"With the developments in Egypt, I think there is an agreement in principle on that and a deal might be reached in the coming few days," Mr Abbas said when asked whether a truce agreement was being cobbled together. He said that Hamas was demanding an Israeli commitment not to target its leaders.
The Haaretz daily quoted an unnamed government official as saying that new rules of engagement had been forged in the wake of the latest bloodshed and that this explained the dramatic drop in violence in the last few days. The paper quoted a military source saying that a tacit agreement was in effect.
"For now, we are not really fighting Hamas," the official was quoted as saying. "There is restraint, even if undeclared."
Israeli officials fear that Hamas will exploit the lull to continue building its arsenal in Gaza, but they are also aware that a resumption of aerial strikes on Hamas militants will result in a renewal of rocket attacks on towns and cities inside Israel.
Israeli defence minister Ehud Barak insisted yesterday that no decision had been taken to halt military action against the Islamic movement. "Nothing has been finished there," he said, referring to Israeli military action in Gaza.
It was announced yesterday that US vice-president Dick Cheney will meet Mr Olmert and Mr Abbas during a visit to the region next week. His trip follows Mr Bush's visit in January and an Israeli-Palestinian commitment at a US-led summit last year to reach a peace agreement by the end of 2008. But with almost no progress having been made in talks between the sides, and with the latest outburst of violence unlikely to be the last, few believe the year-end deadline is attainable.