Hardline Islamic groups said this evening that there would be no immediate end to attacks inside Israel.
The refusal to heed a call by an inter-factional committee for a partial truce came as Israel piled more pressure on militants, preparing to open the trial of Marwan Barghuti, a potential successor to Yasser Arafat and a leading figure of the intifada.
The rejection also came as Israeli and Palestinian officials said they were preparing to resume talks aimed at ending the 22-month-old conflict as a relative calm descended on the region.
The hardline group Hamas and its smaller rival Islamic Jihad effectively dashed the truce hopes when they said their policy of attacks inside Israel was unchanged.
"Hamas will not accept any document that does not give it the right of resistance on all Palestinian lands," Gaza Hamas leader Ismail Abu Shanab told AFP. Asked if the resistance included the use of suicide bombings, he said it did.
AFP
