CAIRO: Hamas has accepted an Egyptian-brokered 18-month truce with Israel in the Gaza Strip which Egypt will announce in 48 hours, state news agency MENA quoted a senior Hamas official as saying on Thursday.
Mussa Abu Marzuk, the Islamist movement’s deputy leader, said after meeting with Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman that Hamas had accepted the truce in return for the lifting of the Israeli blockade of Gaza.
“We have agreed to the truce with the Israeli side for one year and a half (in return) for the opening of all six passages between the Gaza Strip and Israel, MENA quoted him as saying.
Egypt will announce the agreement after contacting Israel and Palestinian factions, he said.
Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev told AFP in Jerusalem that he did not wish to comment.
Abu Marzuk, who headed a senior Hamas delegation in Cairo, said difficulties that had prevented an agreement have been resolved, especially the issue of captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.
Israel had insisted that Hamas release Shalit, captured by Palestinian militants more than two years ago, as a condition for ending its blockade of Gaza, which it imposed after Hamas violently seized the enclave in June 2007.
Marzuk said that Shalit has been removed from the Gaza truce deal and that he will be released in exchange for Palestinian prisoners.
Osama Hamdan, Hamas’ representative in Lebanon, told AFP that that “we have surpassed the Shalit issue, adding that Hamas did not want to hold Shalit indefinitely but wanted to exchange him for Palestinian prisoners.
“There are ongoing efforts for the Shalit issue but they are separate from the truce, he said.
Hamas officials have said that Israel offered to open its crossings into Gaza to allow between 70 and 80 percent of goods into the coastal enclave, barring those it says could be used to make weapons.
Preventing Hamas from obtaining more weapons was a key objective of Israel’s 22-day war on Gaza in December and January, the Israeli government said.
Mohammed Nasr, a senior Hamas official based in Damascus and a member of the delegation, told AFP on the eve of Thursday s meeting that the delegation would seek guarantees that Israel would not re-impose the blockade after a truce.
Hamdan said after the meeting with Suleiman, who has been mediating between Israel and Hamas as the two sides refuse to talk to each other, that Egypt had offered reasonable guarantees.
The truce will open the crossings with guarantees of the passage of needed goods into Gaza, he told AFP over the phone from Beirut.
Ending the blockade has been a key Hamas demand and the reason it says it launched rockets and mortar rounds into Israel after a six-month truce expired in December 2008.
The rocket and mortar fire led to the war with Israel which killed more than 1,330 Palestinians and 13 Israelis.
Israel and Hamas declared ceasefires to the fighting on Jan. 18, but the fragile calm has been tested by Palestinian rocket attacks and Israeli air strikes.
During the fighting, Egypt had proposed a three-point truce plan beginning with an immediate ceasefire to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza, followed by meetings with Israeli and Palestinian officials to secure a long-term ceasefire.
Egypt also proposed the resumption of Palestinian unity talks, which foundered in November after Hamas boycotted a meeting in Cairo, saying its Fatah rivals continued to arrest its members in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
After Hamas seized Gaza, Fatah s powerbase was limited to the Palestinian Authority in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, headed by president Mahmoud Abbas.
Palestinian officials told AFP that a senior Fatah delegation will meet with Hamas officials in Cairo on Thursday night to prepare for the resumption of reconciliation talks, to which Egypt has invited factions on Feb. 22.
Senior Fatah official Nabil Shaath told AFP that Ahmed Qurei, a former prime minister and a lead negotiator, will attend the talks.
Hamas and Fatah met earlier this week in Cairo and agreed to form committees on issues that divide the two rivals. -AFP
