Truce won't work, says sceptical Israel

JERUSALEM - An Israeli general leading security talks with the Palestinians says a temporary truce with Islamic militants will lead to more violence and set back a US-backed roadmap to peace.

"No hope should be put in this truce," Major-General Amos Gilad told Israel Radio.

"As far as Hamas is concerned, it is a ceasefire for the purpose of reorganisation, so it can carry out even harsher acts of murder."

Militant groups have been negotiating with Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas on a truce with Israel to end a cycle of violence that has battered the peace plan affirmed at a summit in Jordan on June 4.

Hamas, whose suicide bombers have killed scores of Israelis in a 33-month-old uprising for statehood, said Israeli attacks on its commanders and other military measures in the West Bank and Gaza were delaying its answer on a temporary truce.

Another round of talks between Gilad and Palestinian security minister Mohammed Dahlan on the possibility of a US-brokered Israeli troop pullback in Gaza and the West Bank town of Bethlehem ended inconclusively yesterday.

Palestinian officials said there was no change in their position that for the deal to work, Israel must curtail its actions - especially "assassinations" and raids in the territories.

They also seek the release of thousands of Palestinians detained in Israeli anti-militant sweeps.

But Israeli officials have said the two areas would serve as limited proving grounds for the Palestinian Authority's ability to prevent militants from launching attacks, and withdrawals elsewhere could follow.

At the World Economic Forum in Jordan, US Secretary of State Colin Powell sounded an optimistic note.

"I know the Palestinian Authority is hard at work trying to bring into place a cessation of violence on the part of [militants]," said Powell, who was in Israel and the Palestinian territories on Saturday in a bid to rescue the roadmap.

Israel has stepped up track-and-kill operations against Palestinian militants.

In the latest, undercover troops on Sunday shot dead a Hamas commander in the West Bank blamed for the deaths of 52 people.

Hamas, bent on destroying the Jewish state, vowed "thundering retaliation", and its founder, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, said truce talks were jeopardised.

"We have not formed a final position because there are obstacles in the street: Israeli attacks, assassination and incursions," he said in Gaza.

On Monday, four members of al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades were killed by an explosion in northern Gaza.

Some witnesses said the men died from Israeli tank fire, but others said a bomb they were planting exploded prematurely. Israeli military sources said there was no shooting in the area.

Further complicating efforts to bolster the roadmap, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon told his Cabinet Israelis could continue building settlements "but just don't publicise it, wave it in the air", a source said.

He said Sharon meant building "for current needs" within existing main settlements, not new enclaves, on land Israel occupied in the 1967 Middle East war.

The peace plan stipulates Israel "freezes all settlement activity, including natural growth of settlements", as part of measures leading to a Palestinian state.

- REUTERS