CAIRO: Hamas remained defiant on Tuesday in its demands of Israel for a long-term truce in Gaza as renewed violence around the Palestinian territory overshadowed fresh talks with Egyptian mediators.
Representatives of Hamas, which has controlled Gaza since seizing it 18 months ago. met Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman – Cairo s pointman on Palestinian and Israeli affairs – hours after Gaza militants fired a rocket at an Israeli town.
Medics said the rocket caused damage but no injuries in Ashkelon, 13 kilometers from Gaza s border, the furthest a projectile has reached since the end of Israel s war against Hamas in Gaza on January 18.
Israeli warplanes bombed smuggling tunnels on Gaza s border with Egypt in response and the Jewish state warned of the severest riposte to rocket fire.
Speaking at a security conference in Herzliya, north of Tel Aviv, Defense Minister Ehud Barak said: I suggest Hamas doesn t fool around with us.
The air force is operating in Gaza as we speak. We promised calm in the south and we will keep our promise.
Barak convened an emergency meeting of military and intelligence chiefs on the situation, army radio said.
The strike came as Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt toured the battered Palestinian enclave, where on Monday the army carried out a air raid that killed a Gaza militant.
Hamas officials have said the group is ready to agree to a one-year truce with Israel, but have not ruled out an 18-month truce proposed by Egyptian mediators.
But a senior official based in Damascus said the delegation had told Suleiman Hamas would not agree to an open-ended truce and that all crossings into Gaza must be completely opened.
The delegation relayed the general outlines Hamas is willing to work within, Mohammed Nazzal told Qatar-based Al Jazeera television.
The first line is that it agrees to a calm of limited duration, but does not accept an open-ended truce, he said, adding that Hamas will not make any commitments about arms smuggling – a key Israeli demand for an extended truce.
Hamas is a resistance movement and the Palestinian people have a right to obtain weapons as long as they are under occupation, he said.
Nazzal also said Israel must end its blockade of Gaza, imposed after Hamas seized the territory in June 2007, in return for a truce.
The problem is in the detail and implementation, not in the general outlines, Nazzal said.
His comments marked no change from Hamas s consistent demands. A Hamas official had said before the delegation arrived on Monday that the movement was waiting for Israel s response.
We have already responded to the Egyptian proposal and we expect we will hear something positive from the Egyptian side, Osama Hamdan, Hamas s representative in Lebanon, told AFP.
Meanwhile, AP reported that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is sending the Obama administration s special envoy for the Middle East back to the region within weeks to pursue further progress between Israel and the Palestinians.
Clinton spoke to reporters at the State Department after meeting with special envoy George Mitchell, who returned Monday from a visit to Egypt, Israel, Jordan and elsewhere in the Middle East.
She said Mitchell s initial trip was the first of many planned high-level diplomatic engagements. She said Mitchell would be returning to the region before the end of this month.
Neither Hamas nor Egypt has released details of the Egyptian proposal but Palestinian Islamic Jihad official Jamil Yusef told Cairo daily Al-Ahram last week that it linked the full opening of the crossings to the release of a captured Israeli soldier.
The deal would allow about 70 percent of (Gaza s) daily needs to pass through the Israeli border crossings, which would open fully after solving the issue of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, said Yusef, who was in Cairo for the truce talks.
Egypt had suggested that the truce begin on February 5.
Israel has tied the end of the blockade to a release of Shalit, who was captured by Palestinian militants in a cross-border raid from Gaza in June 2006. Hamas says Shalit will be released only in exchange for Palestinian prisoners.
Egypt has refused to permanently open its Rafah border crossing with Gaza in the absence of EU monitors and representatives of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
Egyptian media reported on Tuesday that the crossing, which Egypt opened during the war for aid and the evacuation of Palestinian wounded, will be closed from Thursday.
Hamas and Israel both announced unilateral ceasefires on January 18, ending a devastating 22-day war that killed at least 1,330 Palestinians and 13 Israelis. The fragile calm has been tested by Palestinian rocket attacks and Israeli air strikes. -Additional reporting by AP.
