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Sharon-Qorei Meeting Soon, Hamas Offers Olive Branch
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Hamas aims at saving Palestinians from Israeli punitive measures
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OCCUPIED
JERUSALEM, November 3 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - Israeli
and Palestinian leaders edged towards the resumption of top-level
contacts Monday, November 3, as the Hamas resistance movement put
forward an initiative to spare Palestinian and Israeli civilians the
"scourge of war".
A
senior official traveling with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in
Moscow told Agence France-Presse (AFP) Monday that the Israeli Premier
may meet his Palestinian counterpart Ahmed Qorei "within
days".
Palestinian
sources also told AFP that Finance Minister Salam Fayad had met with
Israel's Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz late last week, without giving
details.
Israeli
media also reported that the head of the internal security service Shin
Beth had met with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's national security
advisor Jibril Rajoub over the weekend.
Rajoub,
however, denied that he had met with Shin Beth's Avi Dichter, telling
AFP that "I am not against meetings but I have not met with any
Israeli official."
There
have been increasing signs of a thaw in relations as the Palestinian
Premier prepares to unveil an enlarged government later this week.
Qorei
has made the securing of a mutual ceasefire with Israel the top priority
of his new government and his efforts received a major boost late Sunday
when the political leader of the Islamic Hamas movement said that it
could halt its attacks on civilians in Israel if Israel stops attacking
Palestinian civilians.
"It
is possible that Hamas will propose during a meeting with Abu Alaa
(Qorei) continuing the resistance but sparing civilians from both sides
from the horrors of war," Abdul Aziz-Rantissi told AFP.
But
the Palestinian resistance leader ruled out renewing the
unilateral truce with Israel, asserting that the step could not be
taken while the Israeli aggressions went on non-stop.
"There
are neither external pressures being exercised on Hamas, and Egypt in
particular, nor talks with Qorei to renew the truce," he said.
"It
is pointless to renew the truce, because it would play well in the hands
of the Israeli government. The Zionist enemy, in effect, is paying the
price for usurping and occupying our land," he added.
Rantissi
has been in hiding since Israel attempted
to kill him in a helicopter strike in June.
He
has been always rejecting the possibility of negotiating a new truce
after the
death of one of Hamas top leaders Ismail Abu Shanab, which prompted
the factions into formally calling off the fragile truce.
The
Palestinian Premier, for his part, stressed that he was
seeking an Israeli-Palestinian ceasefire and not just a unilateral
truce by Palestinian resistance groups.
A
report released by a Palestinian human rights organization revealed in
August that Israel had carried out 854 violations of the truce. (Click
to see a breakdown for Israeli violations).
Qorei
has been heading an eight-man emergency government since the beginning
of last month but its term of office is due to expire on Tuesday. He is
then expected to form an enlarged cabinet containing some 24 members.
More
Deaths
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"If the Israeli enemy accepted it, we would show commitment," Rantissi |
Meanwhile,
violence continued on the ground Monday as a teenage Palestinian bomber
who was being hunted by Israeli security services blew up himself up
near the northern West Bank town of Qalqilya, according to Israeli army
sources.
There
were no other casualties in the explosion in the village of Azun, which
lies close to the Jewish settlement of Shavei Shomron, Palestinian and
Israeli sources said.
One
Israeli source told AFP that the man had started running towards
soldiers after being located but then blew himself up.
The
man had been tracked by the army and police for several hours as a
heightened state of alert was imposed to the north of Tel Aviv.
A
Palestinian security source said that Israeli soldiers had entered the
village in jeeps and imposed a curfew at around 10:00 am (0800 GMT).
"Shortly
afterwards an individual dressed in black walked up to the jeeps and
blew himself only five meters (yards) away," the source told AFP.
The
Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades claimed responsibility in a phone call to AFP
and named the bomber as Sabih Abu Al-Saoud, a 17-year-old from Nablus.
The
Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades is an armed faction linked to Arafat's
mainstream Fatah movement.
The
death brought the toll from three years of Palestinian uprising to 3,591
-- 2,676 of them Palestinians and 849 Israelis.
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