Palestinian and Egyptian sources on Sunday
indicated that Hamas may present a unified, final negotiating position on a
long-term truce in Gaza as soon as Monday, local media reported, dpa reported.
But even as Hamas reportedly moved closer to accepting a truce, Palestinian
militants fired a rocket at southern Israel, damaging cars but causing no
casualties, Israeli military officials said.
A delegation of Hamas leaders from Gaza led my Mahmoud al-Zahar was due in Damascus Sunday for consultations with leaders in exile there.
Speaking to London's pan-Arab al-Hayat newspaper after late-night talks in Cairo Saturday, Salah Al-Bardawil, a senior member of Hamas' delegation, said he expected
an "honorable agreement" to end fighting in Gaza would be reached in
the coming days.
Hossam Zaki, a spokesman for the Egyptian foreign ministry, sounded similarly
upbeat.
"There are positive signs that we can reach understandings on a ceasefire
agreement over the coming days," he told the satellite news channel
al-Arabiya Sunday, adding that he expected a positive response from Hamas on
Monday.
Observers said the progress may stem from a shift in the Israeli negotiating
position. Israel has in the past tied negotiations on lifting the blockade on Gaza to "progress" in negotiations on the release of Gilad Shalit, an Israeli
soldier captured on Israel's border with Gaza in 2006.
But al-Hayat, citing "informed Palestinian sources," on Sunday
reported that Israel had agreed to exchange some 1,000 Palestinian prisoners,
including some convicted of killing Israeli civilians or soldiers, in exchange
for Shalit's release.
The Palestinian sources reportedly attributed the putative change in Israeli
position to the ruling Kadima Party's desire to secure release of Shalit before
the Israeli parliamentary elections on February 10.
Hamas representatives have repeatedly insisted that they would not tie the
issue of opening Gaza's border crossings to Shalit's release.
Mahmoud al-Zahar, a senior Hamas leader in Gaza, on Saturday made his first
public appearance since Israel began bombing the territory in late December at
the head of the delegation crossing into Egypt from Gaza for talks in Cairo that night.
After meeting with Egyptian intelligence officials brokering indirect talks
between Hamas and Israeli security officials, the Hamas delegation was due to
travel to Syria on Sunday for talks with exiled Hamas political leader Khaled
Meshaal.
An Egyptian source, speaking to al-Hayat on condition of anonymity said that
al-Zahar and the rest of the Hamas delegation would tell Meshaal that a lasting
truce was "a popular Palestinian demand."
In his last public statements, Meshaal repeated Hamas' weeks-old position on a
truce in Gaza.
"We will not accept a truce unless it is in return for the lifting of the
blockade, the opening of all crossings, and the rapid reconstruction of Gaza," he said at a rally in Damascus on Friday.
Meshaal further denied any internal divisions over the shape a truce agreement
should take.
Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman is brokering indirect talks between
Hamas leaders and Israeli security officials in the hope of establishing a
long-term truce in the Gaza Strip.
Israel and Hamas declared unilateral ceasefires on January 18 following a
22-day Israeli military offensive on Gaza that left some 1,400 Gazans dead.
Israeli soldiers and Palestinian militants have exchanged fire in Gaza and southern Israel as talks have continued over the past weeks.
Cairo has been trying to get Hamas to agree to a deal that would end
Palestinian arms smuggling into Gaza, a key Israeli demand, and re-open the
coastal enclave's border crossings, one of Hamas' key demands.
...