GAZA CITY, 4 December 2006 — Palestinian fighters vowed to resume rocket attacks against the Jewish state yesterday unless Israel extended a cease-fire to the West Bank within two weeks.
The ruling Islamist Hamas movement, in a separate statement, insisted that the cease-fire agreed to one week ago already included the West Bank and accused Israel of violating the agreement. “We will respect the cease-fire on firing rockets for two weeks starting from today (Sunday) to give a chance to the political efforts to extend the cease-fire to the West Bank,” said the statement from the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades.
The militant group is loosely affiliated with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah faction. “We will resume our bombardment of the Zionist communities if the enemy does not respond to political efforts during this period,” the statement said. “We will respond with force to any Zionist massacre committed against the Palestinian people in the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip,” it added.
Meanwhile Hamas insisted that the cease-fire already includes the West Bank and accused Israel of violating the agreement by continuing military operations there.
“The cease-fire that was agreed to included stopping the firing of rockets in exchange for the cessation of Zionist aggression against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank,” Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said in the statement.
“The continuation of the mass arrests, assassinations, and incursions means that the occupation forces have not abided by the cease-fire, which threatens to blow up (the agreement) at any moment.”
Five Palestinians have been shot dead by Israeli soldiers in the West Bank since the cease-fire, which Israel says only applies to the Gaza Strip, took hold at dawn on Nov. 26.
In Gaza the cease-fire has largely held, although Palestinian militants have violated the cease-fire five times by firing rockets at Israel, causing no injuries or damage. The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades claimed responsibility for several of the attacks.
Meanwhile, Israel Prime Minister Ehud Olmert yesterday warned Palestinian fighters over continuing violations of a fragile truce with the Jewish state as Israel’s security Cabinet met to review the measure. After the latest rocket fired by militants landed without causing casualties or damage earlier yesterday in violation of the truce, Olmert warned that Israel would not restrain itself indefinitely.
Israelis, meanwhile, were urged to leave Egypt’s Sinai yesterday “immediately” amid reports of planned attacks and a hunt for four Palestinians suspected of involvement in bombings in the peninsula. “We call on the several hundred Israelis who are currently in the Sinai to return immediately,” Danny Arditi, the chief of Israel’s anti-terrorist bureau, told army radio. Arditi said the Israeli intelligence indicated that “two or three attacks” were being planned in the region. The warning came two days after Egyptian security forces said that checkpoints had been set up in the Sinai and police had mounted extra patrols on the assumption that four Palestinians suspected of involvement in bomb attacks in Sinai had entered Egypt from the Gaza Strip.
