OCCUPIED JERUSALEM (Agencies)
Israel expects to get a response next week to its conditions for a truce in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, a defense ministry official said on Friday, hours after a missile strike in the Strip killed three Hamas fighters, and wounded two others.
The dead fighters were members of the Al-Qassam Martyrs' Brigades, armed branch of the Islamist Hamas movement. The Israeli missile hit the Jabaliya refugee camp, north of Gaza City, the emergency services said.
An Israeli military spokeswoman in Tel Aviv told AFP "there was an air strike against the Gaza Strip" but declined to give further details.
Another military spokesman, however, added that "the attack targeted a group of terrorists who were preparing to launch rockets against Israel from a cemetery in Jabaliya, and we have stated that the group was hit."
Earlier, some 50 mortars and rockets were fired from Gaza at southern Israel, injuring one woman, Israeli military and rescue sources said.
Meanwhile, Amos Gilad, a top aide to Defense Minister Ehud Barak, presented the conditions for a truce in Gaza during talks in Cairo on Thursday with Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman, who is mediating the negotiations with Hamas.
Among the conditions, Israel is insisting that not only Hamas but also the other militant groups in the Palestinian territory halt rocket and mortar attacks against Israel, the defense ministry official told AFP.
Another key condition is that progress be made towards the release of Gilad Shalit, a young army corporal seized by militant groups including Hamas in a deadly cross-border raid two years ago.
Israel also wants Egyptian authorities to be more energetic in curbing weapons smuggling into Gaza.
Egyptian mediators said they would have a response from Hamas by the middle of next week, the defense ministry official said. |
