GAZA CITY, 24 July 2006 — Despite reports earlier that Palestinians in Gaza had agreed to halt firing rockets into Israel, they fired five rockets at Israel early yesterday.
Palestinian officials said yesterday that the main fighter groups, Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, reached an agreement to stop firing rockets if Israel calls off the Gaza offensive it launched last month when Hamas-linked groups captured a soldier in a raid on an Israeli military post. The groups denied an agreement had been reached.
Under the reported deal, the rocket fire was supposed to end at midnight Saturday. But early yesterday morning, Palestinians launched five homemade rockets into Israel, causing no injuries.
Abu Ahmad, an Islamic Jihad spokesman, said no agreement had been reached. “As long as there is Zionist aggression, we will continue our resistance,” he said, adding that talks on reaching an agreement had not ended. The talks in Gaza City were sponsored by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas, said officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because the agreement was reached at a closed meeting.
Israel has been carrying out a campaign of airstrikes and raids into Gaza for nearly a month to free the captured soldier and to stop firing rockets into Israel. More than 100 Palestinians have been killed in the offensive. Nabil Shaath, a senior Abbas aide, said the president and the groups met in recent days and decided a cease-fire by Israel and the fighters which had to be adopted.
