RAMALLAH/GAZA CITY, 12 June 2008 — Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad said yesterday he believed it would be impossible to reach a peace deal with Israel this year. Talks on Palestinian statehood have shown little progress since their launch at a conference in Annapolis, Maryland, in November.
Fayyad cited Israeli settlement building in the occupied West Bank as an obstacle to progress in the negotiations. "I have a strong feeling that is tantamount to certainty that a solution won't be achieved this year," Fayyad told reporters.
His comments echoed remarks last week by Palestinian chief negotiator Ahmed Qorei, who said it would "take a miracle" to reach an agreement in 2008. Asked about Qorei's comments, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said last week that in the turbulent Middle East "a realist is someone who believes in miracles."
Meanwhile, Israel threw its weight yesterday behind Egyptian efforts to broker a truce with Hamas in and around Gaza but also ordered its armed forces to prepare for a possible offensive into the Palestinian territory.
The Islamist movement, which has controlled the territory since a takeover last June, mocked the Israeli talk of further cease-fire negotiations while threatening military action.
A senior Israeli government official said that while there was little hope the truce talks would bear fruit, "for the time being we decided to give them a chance."
"The Security Cabinet decided this morning to support Egyptian efforts to achieve calm in the south and end the daily targeting of Israeli civilians by the terrorists in Gaza," Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's spokesman Mark Regev said.
Hamas was dismissive of Israel's announcement. "The Israeli occupation itself says it is preparing a large operation in Gaza, which demonstrates that its declarations on a truce are neither realistic nor serious," Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri told AFP.
But even as the Israeli Cabinet meeting was under way the violence continued, with four Palestinians killed in the Gaza Strip. One of yesterday's dead was a 10-year-old girl, Hadeel Al-Smeiri. She died when a tank shell hit a house east of the south Gaza city of Khan Younis. Two relatives were wounded. A member of Hamas' armed wing was killed in the same area, again by tank fire.
A third Palestinian was killed and two were wounded in an Israeli air raid.
