Palestinian police stop attacks on Israel

Thousands of armed Palestinian police took up positions in the northern Gaza Strip to prevent attacks on Israel, and Islamic militants said they were suspending rocket fire – major steps toward a possible truce after more than four years of bloody Mideast conflict.

In another sign yesterday that a ceasefire deal could be imminent, a Palestinian official said after Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas and the militant group Hamas met in Gaza, that Egypt would likely host a high-level meeting between the two sides in Cairo soon to finalise an agreement.

The official refused to detail the expected deal but said that talks were moving in a ”positive direction”. The Cairo talks, he said, would be held after the Muslim Eid al-Adha holiday, which ends tomorrow.

The Bush administration said yesterday that it was taking advantage of a lull in terror attacks to send the State Department’s ranking Mideast official to the region to assess chances of serious peacemaking.

The announcement of next week’s trip by Assistant Secretary of State William Burns to Israel, Palestinian areas and Egypt was coupled with a positive US response to thousands of armed Palestinian police taking up positions in northern Gaza to prevent attacks on Israel.

“We have always stressed how important it is for the Palestinians to organise themselves to end the violence, and we welcome steps that are being taken in that direction,” State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said.

Abbas hopes to co-opt the militants into halting violence instead of cracking down on them as Israel demands. A lull in four years of fighting could lead to a renewal of long-stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

Similar negotiations have failed in the past, and Israel is balking at a key demand by the militants: a guarantee to halt military operations, including arrest raids and targeted killings of wanted men.

Israel’s deputy defence minister, Zeev Boim, said yesterday that Israel would respond with “great force” to renewed rocket fire.

In his meetings with Hamas and other groups, Abbas also is trying to forge agreement on a joint political platform that would give him a stronger mandate in future negotiations with Israel. The document being considered calls for establishing a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem, al-Masri said.