Israel rejects landmark truce offer
November 24 2006 at 01:33AM
By Nidal al-Mughrabi
Gaza – Palestinian militant groups offered to stop firing rockets into Israel in exchange for a cessation of all attacks on the Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank, an official said on Thursday.
But an Israeli government official swiftly rejected the offer, demanding that militants lay down their weapons first.
Khader Habib, a leader of the Islamic Jihad, said the main Palestinian factions including the governing Hamas, President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah and other smaller groups reached the understanding while meeting Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh.
“For the good of the national Palestinian interest … there is a position supporting calm (a ceasefire) by stopping rocket fire in return for an end to the aggression against our people in Gaza and the West Bank,” Habib told reporters.
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