Hamas And Israel In Truce Mediation

Al Jazeera English

Israeli and Hamas officials are discussing a possible ceasefire through Egyptian mediators after Ehud Olmert, Israel's prime minister, ordered a halt to raids on the Gaza Strip. Olmert gave the order on Monday in response to a significant drop in the number of rockets and mortars being fired from the territory, offficials said.


"We certainly appear to have entered a period of talking rather than fighting now," Al Jazeera's Jacky Rowland reported from Gaza. "For more than three days now there have been virtually no rocket attacks into Israel ... and also there have been no Israeli air strikes, no overflights of Gaza."


Both Israeli defence officials and Hamas leaders have insisted that no formal truce has been agreed so far, but officials in Olmert's office told the Associated Press that he had ordered the army to scale back its operations to allow talks to proceed. "What we are seeing is a period of shuttling backwards and forwards to Egypt by Hamas representatives, and on Sunday we know that in Egypt there was an Israeli official," Rowland reported. "But the Egyptians are being very careful that they are not even in the country at the same time."


Hossam Zaki, spokesman for the Egyptian foreign ministry, confirmed that Cairo had been in contact with representatives from both sides and there had been some progress. "There is an interest on both parties in a period of calm and the issue now is to discuss whether there will be guarantees ... that the military confrontations and operation will not occur again," he told Al Jazeera.


Hamas sources told Al Jazeera that the Palestinians are not only calling for an end to the military action, but also the reopening of the Rafah crossing and the lifting of the siege on Gaza.