Islamic Jihad leader accepts truce

The militant Islamic Jihad organisation has accepted a conditional three-month halt to attacks on Israelis, a leader of the group said today.

The declaration is the first on-the-record confirmation of the deal from a militant leader.

“We have accepted a conditional ceasefire for three months,” the leader, Mohammed al-Hindi, told The Associated Press.

Intensive meetings continued today between Islamic Jihad, the larger Hamas group and Yasser Arafat’s Fatah faction to work out the final wording of an official ceasefire declaration.

The Syrian-based leaders of the two Islamic groups agreed to the truce earlier in the week. A formal announcement was expected tomorrow, after the main parties bring 10 smaller factions on board and to add final touches to the document.

The ceasefire has given a major push to a US-sponsored peace initiative which got off to a rocky start because of continuing violence.

The “road map” plan for Palestinian statehood by 2005, launched by US President George Bush on June 4, is the latest effort to end a generations-old conflict.

Hamas leaders have indicated that they have agreed to the truce, but that they are waiting to declare formal acceptance in the joint declaration with all the parties.

Yesterday, Hamas leader Abdel Aziz Rantisi said: “I believe that it will be a good document.

“It will serve the interest of the Palestinian people and will preserve Palestinian unity and the option of resistance.”

In another sign that the peace effort was moving forward, Israel agreed yesterday to pull troops out of parts of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank town of Bethlehem. The “road map” peace plan requires Israeli forces to pull back to positions held before the outbreak of fighting in September 2000.

US National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice was to arrive today for talks with Israelis and Palestinians about their next moves under the plan.

Yesterday’s initial agreement on an Israeli troop withdrawal from Gaza and the West Bank town of Bethlehem came with a pledge by Israel to halt targeted killings of Palestinian militants, sources said. That is one of the Palestinian militants’ key demands for going ahead with a ceasefire.

At its weekly Saturday meeting, Arafat’s Fatah movement approved Dahlan’s agreement with the Israelis on a troop withdrawal.

Rice planned to meet Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas later today in the West Bank desert oasis of Jericho. Tomorrow, she is to meet Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

Her weekend mission coincides with the militant groups’ formal announcement, expected tomorrow, that they are ending attacks.

The declaration would be a turning point in the 33 months of violence - although Israel has been sceptical of the truce idea – and it remains to be seen whether all militants will comply.

The developments, in line with the first phase of the ”road map”, went ahead even though violence continued yesterday – a raid by Israeli commandos searching unsuccessfully for a top Hamas bomb-maker left four Palestinians and an Israeli soldier dead in the Gaza Strip.

Ahead of an Israeli troop withdrawal, which could come as early as Monday, a newly appointed US envoy, John Wolf, was to assemble an American team to monitor the hand over of control from Israel to the Palestinians, said US Secretary of State Colin Powell in Washington.

“We are pleased with the progress we have seen,” Powell said.

The militant groups’ truce document, first reported by AP on Wednesday, applies to settlers and soldiers in the West Bank and Gaza in addition to civilians in Israel, fulfilling a key Israeli demand.

In exchange, the Palestinian groups asked Israel to suspend targeted killings of militants and release prisoners.

A crowd of Palestinian protesters calling for prisoners to be released, today confronted Abbas in the West Bank town of Ramallah.

Emerging from his office to speak to the noisy crowd, Abbas told them he would raise their demands with Rice.

Surrounded by the crowd, Abbas demanded a loudspeaker, was handed one by an aide and shouted: “There will be no peace or security if even one Palestinian prisoner remains behind bars.

Be sure that we will exert our utmost in order to empty all prisons of prisoners.”

The deal on an Israeli withdrawal in Gaza and Bethlehem was reached in talks yesterday between Palestinian security chief Mohammed Dahlan and Israel’s Major General Amos Gilad. Technical details for the withdrawal were to be worked out in meetings tomorrow.

Taking over security control of the areas Israel leaves, the Palestinians have agreed to act against what Israel calls “ticking bombs” – a reference to assailants on their way to attack Israelis, and the people who send them.

“The Palestinian security apparatus is ready to take on this huge responsibility,” Dahlan said.

Israeli-Palestinian negotiations on the terms of the withdrawal had been deadlocked for several weeks, in part over who would control the main north-south road in Gaza.

The Palestinians said that under yesterday’s deal, the road would remain open 24 hours a day and the Rafah crossing from Egypt into Gaza would be open 12 hours a day.

Israel and the United States have given the ceasefire a lukewarm welcome, preferring instead to see militant groups dismantled, as the road map requires.

There seemed to be a change in tone among Israeli officials yesterday. Deputy premier Ehud Olmert said an end to attacks would be welcome.

“I hope it happens,” he said.

“But it doesn’t diminish the Palestinian obligation under the road map to dismantle Hamas and Islamic Jihad, including imprisoning their leaders and giving their weapons to a third party.”