Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas said Friday that Palestinian military factions had agreed to halt rocket fire if Israel reciprocates by stopping its military offensives in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Miri Eisin, a spokeswoman for Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, rejected the proposal as "ludicrous," and called on the Palestinians to come up with a more realistic plan for halting the cycle of violence.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas recently got involved in efforts to nail down a ceasefire, and will hopefully come up with a more serious proposal that Israel could respond to, Eisin said. "Israel wants calm in the Gaza Strip," Eisin said. "We'll see if there are more concrete proposals."
But Haniyeh said the Palestinians would not shoulder the responsibility of the truce alone. "The ball now is in the Israeli court," Haniyeh said. "It (Israel) must stop its aggression and escalation against the Palestinian people, then there will be no problem according to what the factions agreed in their last meeting."
The Toronto Star article never mentions or even hints at why Israeli officials consider the truce "ludicrous". Nor oddly enough does the Toronto Star article mention that the Palestinians are offering a truce which does not preclude them from launching suicide bombing attacks or any other “cross border” activities against the Israel civilians.
so.. they offered a truce but it was rejected?
ReplyDelete