Hamas stops rocket fire into Israel: Gaza fighters

An armed Palestinian group accused the Gaza Strip's Hamas rulers on Saturday of preventing its men from firing rockets at Israel as a delegation of the Islamist group met Egyptian officials in Cairo to try to set a new date for the signing of a Palestinian unity deal.

Hamas police intercepted Islamic Jihad rocket crews on three occasions over the past month, a group official said, foiling their bids to avenge Israeli fire on Gaza and to show solidarity with Palestinian protests over the al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem.

"We have been prevented from launching attacks," the Islamic Jihad official told Reuters, adding that Hamas had also scrapped a planned rally by the group and arrested two of its members in a dispute over control of a mosque in northern Gaza.

Hamas, which fired hundreds of short-range rockets in retaliation of Israel's land, sea and air assault of the strip, denied Islamic Jihad's allegation, but has since privately called for the salvoes to stop for the sake of repairing Gaza's ravaged infrastructure.

"There is no truce with the occupation (Israel), whose crimes against our people are continuing, and therefore we have not and we will not block resistance," said Ehab Al-Ghsain, spokesman for the Hamas-run Interior Ministry.

Islamic Jihad's complaint could not be independently verified -- not least as, by its own account, its rocketeers had been only briefly detained by Hamas police.

Gazan rocket attacks on Israel have tapered off since the war, and Israeli defense officials have credited Hamas, saying it sought calm in order both to avoid another conflict and to improve its standing among Palestinians and abroad.

Hamas has signaled willingness to enter a long-term truce with Israel and, through Egypt and Germany, is negotiating the exchange of an Israeli soldier held captive in Gaza for hundreds of jailed Palestinians.

We have been prevented from launching attacks

Islamic Jihad official

Palestinian unity deal

Egypt is also trying to mend the rift between Hamas and the secular Fatah faction of Abbas, who has often accused the Islamists of jeopardizing Palestinian national aspirations with "pointless" violence against Israel.

The latest Egyptian mediation came today as a Hamas delegation met Egyptian officials in Cairo to try to set a new date for the signing of a Palestinian unity deal.

The team led by exiled senior political leader Moussa Abu Marzuk is to hold talks with Egypt's intelligence chief Omar Suleiman on "a new, appropriate date for the new session of inter-Palestinian dialogue," Sami Abu-Zuhri told AFP.

"The atmosphere is not right for the signing of an accord," he said.

Hamas, which rules Gaza, has asked Egypt to delay the signing of the deal which Cairo as mediator had announced for later this month, a source within the Islamist group said on Wednesday.

Egypt had announced at the start of the week that bitter rivals Hamas and the mainstream Fatah party of Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas would travel to Cairo to sign the long-delayed reconciliation deal on October 25-26.

The postponement was requested because of the controversial decision by the Palestinian delegation at the U.N. Human Rights Council to drop its backing for an immediate vote on a damning report on the Gaza war, the Hamas source said.

The U.N. report, authored by respected South African judge Richard Goldstone, accused Israel and Hamas of committing war crimes during the 22-day war that killed 1,400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis.

Hamas has been at the forefront of criticism leveled at Abbas over the delay on the Goldstone report, saying the move "betrayed" the Palestinian victims of the land, air and sea assault.

The president, who has also faced a storm of criticism across the Arab world, has since sought to backtrack, saying he welcomed a move by Libya to hold an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council to discuss the report.

On Thursday, Fatah urged Hamas to join forces to press for international action against Israel over the damning U.N. report.

Fatah and Hamas have increasingly been at odds since January 2006, when the Islamists won by a landslide in parliamentary elections.

The atmosphere is not right for the signing of an accord

Hamas official