Hamas agrees to maintain de facto truce

GAZA - Hamas said after talks with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas at the weekend that it would maintain a de facto truce while considering whether to accept a permanent ceasefire he reached with Israel.

"Hamas' position regarding calm will continue unchanged and Israel will bear responsibility for any new violation or aggression," Ismail Haniyah, a senior leader of the militant group, told Reuters.

"Hamas will study all that we heard from brother Abu Mazen (Abbas) and then we will make our final decision. "

The meeting was held several hours after Israel confirmed it had agreed to allow dozens of exiled Palestinian militants to return home, a key Hamas demand for ending more than four years of bloodshed.

On Thursday, Hamas and the militant Islamic Jihad group fired mortar and rocket barrages at Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip, puncturing the ceasefire Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon declared at a summit in Egypt on Tuesday.

The two groups, which have largely adhered to a de facto truce, said they were responding to the killing of a Palestinian by Israel.

Ending violence is key to reviving a US-backed peace "road map" that charts mutual steps towards the creation of a Palestinian state alongside a secure Israel.

"Hamas leaders ... listened to the latest developments and the understandings that have been achieved (with Israel)," said Samir al-Mashhrawi, a leader of Abbas' Fatah faction who attended the meeting with the group.

Mashhrawi said Abbas briefed Hamas on Israel's planned troop pullback from five West Bank cities and its pledges to halt the killing of wanted militants and release 900 of the 8000 Palestinian prisoners it holds.

"Hamas will declare its final position on the truce in the near future," he said.

- REUTERS