Abbas pledges Hamas truce ahead of talks

PALESTINIAN Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas said he was convinced he could reach a truce with Hamas by next week, when he is due to join Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and US President George W Bush in a three-way summit in Jordan.

In an interview with Israel’s top-selling daily Yediot Aharonot, Mr Abbas said: “I believe that next week I will reach a ceasefire agreement with Hamas.

“Hamas will undertake to stop terrorism both inside the Green Line and in the territories,” he said, referring to the line separating Israel from the West Bank.

He also said he was confident he could later strike similar deals with armed groups linked to Arafat’s Fatah party and with the Islamic Jihad.

Hamas has carried out the bulk of recent suicide attacks inside Israel, but says it would accept a truce if Israel halts its military operations in the Palestinian territories.

The group said yesterday a ceasefire was being discussed “at the highest level” but that a decision had not yet been reached.

Mr Abbas prepared to meet his Israeli counterpart Ariel Sharon last night to discuss the peace road map ahead of a three-way summit next week with Mr Bush, as fresh violence raged in the Palestinian territories.

Ahead of the meeting, Mr Sharon pledged in a televised address that:

“Israel will never let go of Jerusalem.”

The Jewish state seized Arab east Jerusalem, which the Palestinians want as the capital of a future state of their own and whose fate remains at the core of the dispute, in the 1967 Middle East war. A source at Palestinian foreign minister Nabil Shaath’s office said he and Palestinian security chief Mohammed Dahlan were also expected to attend the meeting.

On the ground, Israeli troops shot dead a militant from the hardline Islamic group Hamas during a raid into the southern Gaza city of Khan Yunis, Palestinian security sources said.

Relatives said the 24-year-old had been wounded and was being carried to his house when soldiers shot him dead in a nearby street.

The army said 29 people were arrested in the Khan Yunis sweep, prompting militants from Hamas’s armed wing to take the streets and call over loudspeakers for revenge.

Earlier, in the northern West Bank city of Jenin, a gunman belonging to Islamic Jihad was gunned down by Israeli troops, the group’s local leader and Palestinian medical sources said.

The road map calls for a halt to settlement activity on Palestinian land and the dismantling of the more than 60 outposts set up on West Bank hilltops since Mr Sharon came to power in March 2001.

The blueprint paves the way for the creation of a Palestinian state by 2005 but also demands an end to attacks by radical Palestinian groups.

The peace road map has had no impact on the ground and Mr Bush’s personal involvement in the process next week is expected to boost the plan’s prospects.

Mr Bush is due to meet the Israeli and Palestinian premiers in the Red Sea resort of Aqaba on June 4, a day after an initial summit with Arab leaders in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.