Jerusalem/Gaza City - Israel could not accept an Egyptian- mediated truce with Hamas in the Gaza Strip unless it dealt with the issue of arms smuggling across the Egyptian border into the salient, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Monday. Meeting visiting Egyptian security chief Omar Suleiman in Jerusalem, Olmert said the ceasefire proposal also had to include the relase of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, snatched in a cross-border raid nearly 23 months ago, and whose relase has been the subject of failed negotiations.
Defence Minister Ehud Barak, who also met with the Egyptian envoy on Sunday, warned that Israel would launch a massive operation in the Gaza Strip if the militants groups there did not halt their continuous rocket fire at southern Israel.
Egypt has been attempting to mediate a truce between the militants groups in the Strip led by Hamas, who launch mortars and improvised missiles at Israel, and Israel, which retaliates with air and ground strikes on the enclave.
Israel has said it will scale down its military operations in and around Gaza if the rocket fire stopped, but has been wary of entering into any formal truce, for fear the militants groups would use the lull to rearm and reorganize.
Israel also does not want to give even indirect recognition to Hamas, which it boycotts in response to the Islamist groups' refusal to change its charter and recognise the Jewish state.
A senior Hamas leader meanwhile urged Israel to accept the ceasefire deal, but said that if it did not then "they have to know and to expect that the Palestinian people will not stop their resistance."
"Our stance will depend on Israel's. We will not be hasty and we hope to stop the aggression and break the siege," Mahmoud al-Zahar said.
Hamas has already accepted the Egyptian truce, but although it administers the Gaza Strip, its armed wing is only one of several in the salient.
The Islamic Jihad, which took responsibility for firing two missiles at southern Israel Monday morning, has not officially accepted the ceasefire, although it has said it will not hinder efforts to bring about a lull in the fighting.
Hamas hopes a ceasefire with Israel will also bring about an end to the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip, imposed after the militant movement routed forces loyal of President Mahmoud Abbas last June and seized security control of the enclave.
Israel periodically tightens the siege in response to the increased rocket fire, and to attacks on the border crossing,s such as the one on April 9, when gunmen attacked the Nahal Oz fuel terminal and killed two Israeli civilians.
Fuel deliveries to the Strip have been sporadically suspended since then, but on Monday deliveries resumed.
Four tankers carrying industrial diesel were seen entering the salient, on their way to the Strip's only power station which shut down Saturday due to a shortage of fuel.
Palestinian Petroleum Agency Director Mujahed Salama said Israel has begun piping fuel into the storage tankers on the Palestinian side of the Nahal Oz fuel terminal on the borders between the Strip and Israel.
"About one million litres of industrial diesel will be channelled to the power plant, in addition to 30 tons of cooking gas and 100,000 litres of vehicle diesel," he told reporters.
Israeli officials have accused Hamas of deliberately causing an "artificial" crisis by refusing to remove the fuel stored on the Palestinian side of the Nahal Oz terminal.
