Palestinians win deal with gunmen to save truce

Palestinian leaders have won a deal with militants to halt mortar fire at Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip and rescue a fragile three-month-old truce with Israel, a Palestinian Authority official said yesterday.

The agreement was intended to curtail violence that had threatened to end the shaky truce and overshadow Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's planned meeting with US President George W. Bush in Washington on Thursday.

A Palestinian official told Reuters that "factions including Hamas have agreed to stop rocket attacks" after Palestinian Interior Minister Nasser Youssef asked them in talks that started on Friday in the Gaza Strip. The talks aimed to help preserve the truce called by Israeli and Palestinian leaders in Egypt in February.

Palestinian militants had fired rounds of mortar bombs and rockets at Gush Katif settlements in Gaza, hurting one Israeli after Israel killed a militant under disputed circumstances on Wednesday. Israel has since killed two more Gaza gunmen, including one who opened fire on the Kfar Darom settlement on Friday, and had threatened further retaliation to quieten the area before a planned Gaza pullout in mid-August.

"While we condemn the Israeli attacks on our territories, we believe no one should provide the Israelis with a pretext to continue and escalate these attacks," the Palestinian official said of Youssef's deal with the militants.

Youssef also ordered Palestinian security forces to fan out in southern Gaza's Khan Younis area to prevent further violence, the official said.

Sami Abu Zuhri, a Hamas spokesman, said the group was committed to the ceasefire but that "resistance operations will come in reaction" to Israeli violence.

Hamas, a group sworn to Israel's destruction, had earlier said it was avenging the death of fighters in Gaza last week.