Gaza ceasefire in doubt after rocket attacks

Talks are being held today by Israeli and Palestinian leaders today in a bid to determine the future of a ceasefire in Gaza.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was convening top Cabinet ministers and military commanders to decide on a response to the first rocket barrage by Hamas militants in Gaza in five months.

Olmert consulted his defence minister, Amir Peretz, after yesterday’s barrage and planned to continue the discussion today at a regular session of the Security Cabinet, Israeli officials said.

The issue was whether to resume Israeli attacks against Palestinian rocket squads, signalling an end to five months of relative calm.

Peretz told Israel Radio last night that the Hamas claim of responsibility for the rockets attack was “a very serious matter, and we will have to deal with it.”

Hamas militants claimed they launched 41 rockets and 54 mortar shells.

The Israeli military said it could confirm only six rockets and eight mortars. Two of the rockets fell in Israel, the army said, causing no casualties or damage.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert announced the truce in late November, declaring an end to Palestinian rocket fire and Israeli attacks, including airstrikes at Gaza militants and punishing invasions of towns in northern Gaza.

Israel stopped most of its military activity but kept Gaza in a stranglehold by closing vital crossings, citing security threats. And while Hamas rocket squads stayed on the sidelines, other groups, like Islamic Jihad, kept up fire of homemade rockets almost daily at Israeli towns and villages just outside Gaza.

Weekend Israeli raids in the northern West Bank and a rare Israeli missile strike in Gaza after a rocket attack, killed nine, including two civilians, and Hamas called for attacks against Israel in retaliation.

Yesterday’s rocket barrage, coinciding with Israeli independence day, was the first sign the new Hamas line might spell the end of the truce.

“The ceasefire has been over for a long time, and Israel is responsible for that,” Hamas spokesman Abu Obeida, told the Voice of Palestine radio station.

In Rome, Abbas called on Israel to “exercise the necessary self-control” and said the “truce violation is an exceptional act which will not last.”

Israeli media, citing military officials, said the rocket attack apparently had been intended to create a diversion in order to capture an Israeli soldier near the Gaza border. The military refused to comment on the reports.

The head of the Egyptian security delegation in Gaza, Maj. Gen. Burhan Hamad, called a meeting of all Palestinian factions for this morning, urging them to maintain the calm “to avert any possible Israeli invasion of Gaza.” He condemned the rocket barrages and the Israeli raids.

Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas appeared to defend the attack. “We made great efforts at keeping the truce and there was a positive Palestinian position, but unfortunately this position was met by expanding (Israeli) aggression and escalating it against the Palestinian people,” he said.

Haniyeh’s spokesman, Ghazi Hamad, also blamed Israel, but said the Palestinian government “affirms the importance of maintaining the truce and protecting it.”

At an independence day event, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni praised the Arab League for its latest peace initiative, renewing an offer of recognition of Israel in exchange for a pullout from all lands captured in the 1967 war and a just solution for Palestinian refugees and their millions of descendants.

“Maybe for the first time the Arab world understands the vital role it fills by lending support and legitimacy to the Israeli-Palestinian process by stretching their hand out to Israel,” she said. Israel does not accept parts of the plan but has called for negotiations.