MADRID (AFP) — Hamas-controlled Gaza, a strip of land bordering southern Israel, is close to declaring a ceasefire under a deal proposed by Egyptian mediators, Palestinian foreign minister Riyad al-Malki said Wednesday.
"I think we are very close to announcing a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip that will allow the blockade of the border area to be lifted and also end Israeli incursions and the launch rockets of Hamas into southern Israel," he told a conference in Madrid.
Malki was speaking one day before US President George W. Bush is to hold talks with Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas in Washington as part of diplomatic efforts to try to revive the flagging Mideast peace process.
Israel tightened its restrictions on the Gaza Strip after the Islamist Hamas movement came to power in the territory in June last year, causing shortages in food and gas and other key commodities.
Border crossings in the territory of about 1.4 million people have been closed except for humanitarian aid in an attempt to weaken Hamas and end ongoing rocket fire at Israeli towns.
Israel regularly carries out airstrikes and military incursions against Palestinian rocket squads in Gaza.
Senior Hamas leader Ismail Haniya meanwhile said that any truce between Israel and the Hamas-run government in the Gaza Strip must include the West Bank.
"Our position affirms the geographic unity of Palestine and the unity of the Palestinian people," Haniya said at the opening of a new children's hospital in Gaza City.
"The truce, if Israel accepts it, must be mutual, comprehensive and simultaneous and must include the West Bank and the Gaza Strip," he added.
Haniya's statement seemed to contradict media reports on Tuesday that Hamas was discussing the possibility of concluding a truce in the Gaza Strip and later expanding it to the West Bank.
He added that it was up to Israel whether or not to approve the ceasefire, saying "the ball is in the Israeli court."
Haniya's comments came two days after visiting former US president Jimmy Carter said the Islamist movement which seized power in Gaza in June would accept a peace deal with Israel if it were put to a Palestinian vote.
Haniya was prime minister in a unity cabinet with the moderate Fatah party of Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas, who fired the government after the Gaza takeover.
Echoing remarks made on Monday by the exiled Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal in Damascus, Haniya said the Islamist movement would accept the establishment of a Palestinian state within 1967 borders but would not recognise Israel.
He added that such a peace deal would have to create a Palestinian state with its capital in Jerusalem, remove all Jewish settlements in the West Bank, and affirm the right of return of Palestinian refugees.
"The problem has always been with the (Israeli) occupation which will not accept a state even in the 1967 borders," Haniya said.
Haniya also said such a peace deal must be agreed upon by a national unity government with all Palestinian factions, including both Hamas and Fatah, or must be put to a referendum.
"The referendum must be put to the Palestinian people inside and outside," he said, referring to the estimated 4.5 million Palestinian refugees from 1948 scattered across the West Bank, Gaza, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon.
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