An agreement has been reached between Palestinian President
Mahmoud Abbas and other factions' leaders to redeploy Palestinian
security forces in the northern Gaza Strip, the Ramallah-based
al-Ayyam daily reported on Sunday.
The daily quoted official sources as saying that the deal was to
prevent Palestinian militants launching homemade rockets on Israel
and stop Israeli military actions in the Strip.
Abbas informed the US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice of the
agreement, asking Rice to forward the information to Israel, the
daily said, adding that the US top diplomat welcomed the idea of
redeploying Palestinian security forces in the northern Gaza
Strip.
On Thursday, Abbas said that Palestinian militant groups had
agreed on a ceasefire with Israel to end an almost-eight-week-old
violence in the Gaza Strip, underlining that ceasefire was
necessary for the Palestinians to "live in peace and security and
to attract foreign investment".
However, spokesman for the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas)
in Gaza Sami Abu Zuhri and senior leader of Islamic Jihad (Holy
War) Khaled al-Batsh had denied that a cease-fire deal had been
reached with Abbas.
Israel has pressed ahead a massive air and ground offensive in
the Gaza Strip in a bid to rescue a soldier kidnapped by
Palestinian militants on June 25 and halt Palestinian rocket
fire.
Over 160 Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli military
offensive in Gaza, the first of its kind in the desert coastal
strip since Israel pulled out of it last summer.
(Xinhua News Agency August 21, 2006)
