Fatah, Hamas leaders in new push for ceasefire with Israel

MIDDLE EAST: Moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas made a new push to restore a cease-fire with Israel that had collapsed under a barrage of Hamas rocket fire.

The two leaders met Wednesday for the first time since Hamas-Fatah fighting broke out two weeks ago and killed more than 50 Palestinians. The two sides reached a truce over the weekend, but tensions remain high because the key dispute over the security forces remains unresolved.

In a challenge to that shaky internal truce, gunmen opened fire from a passing car late Wednesday on the Gaza City home of a prominent Fatah official in Gaza, Maher Miqdad, injuring at least two of his bodyguards. Miqdad, who was away from his home at the time at a meeting on how to shore up the cease-fire, blamed Hamas for the attack.

Intensified Hamas rocket fire accompanying the Palestinian infighting touched off a week of Israeli airstrikes that have killed more than 40 Palestinians, most of them militants. Six rockets landed in Israel on Wednesday, and Israeli aircraft attacked sites in the Gaza City area throughout the day.

A Haniyeh aide, Ahmed Yousef, said a cease-fire with Israel would have to be comprehensive, and include the West Bank in addition to Gaza. The previous truce, brokered in November, applied only to the Gaza-Israel border, and Israel rejected repeated Palestinian demands that it also halt arrest raids in the West Bank.

“If it is going to be for Gaza only, then no one will be able to convince the Palestinian resistance factions to commit to that,” Yousef said.

The meeting ended with the two sides agreeing their factions would meet again.

“We are working to recommit to the truce,” Abbas aide Nabil Abu Rdeneh said.

Haniyeh aide Ghazi Hamad said in a statement that the two leaders called on the international community “to protect the Palestinians and pressure Israel to stop the attacks.”

But Israeli aircraft attacked two Hamas-affiliated money exchange shops in Gaza City after the meeting ended, the military said, cutting off electricity in parts of the town. The military said the money changers were a conduit for millions of dollars sent from Iran, Syria and Lebanon to arm and train Hamas fighters.

Three people were wounded in one of the attacks, Palestinian officials said.

Gaza, Thursday, AP