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Militants suspend attacks on Israel

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - Militant groups have agreed to temporarily halt attacks on Israel, a trial period before a formal truce agreement, to give Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas time to appeal to Israel to stop targeting militants, Palestinian officials said Monday.

The movement toward a cease-fire, coupled with efforts by Palestinian police to stop militants from firing rockets from Gaza into Israel, has raised hopes that a deal can be reached to end four years of bloody conflict.

In the only serious incident Monday, soldiers shot and killed a Palestinian, who was in a no-go zone near the Karni crossing between Gaza and Israel apparently planning to plant a bomb, Army Radio and the military said. On Jan. 13, Palestinian attackers killed five Israelis at the crossing.

Abbas said he was close to sealing a cease-fire agreement with the militants.

"Differences have diminished and I hope that there will be a final agreement very soon," he said upon arriving back in the West Bank city of Ramallah after nearly a week of talks with militant leaders in Gaza.

Palestinian officials say Abbas will not formally declare a truce until he receives Israeli guarantees it will halt military operations, including arrest raids and targeted killings of militants.

Palestinian negotiator Ziad Abu Amr said Monday that the armed groups have promised to temporarily suspend attacks on Israel. "They will continue doing that for some time to see if Israel is ready to accept demands and hold the truce," Abu Amr told the Voice of Palestine radio.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit told reporters in Cairo that Abbas may visit there next week as part of his efforts to broker a truce. Egypt has worked as a mediator between the Palestinians and Israel in recent years.

U.S. envoy William Burns, a senior State Department official, will arrive this week for talks with Israeli and Palestinian leaders on the truce efforts.

SEPARATION BARRIER: Israel has resumed building one of the most sensitive parts of its separation barrier in the West Bank, Israeli media reported.

The 21/2-mile section is part of a fence that would surround the settlement of Ariel, deep in the West Bank. Residents of the nearby Palestinian town of Salfit stopped construction for four months by appealing to Israel's Supreme Court.

At first, Israel planned to include Ariel on the "Israeli" side of the barrier, fencing in a significant slice of West Bank land to reach the settlement. Palestinian and international criticism and court cases forced Israel to revise the route, planning instead to build a security fence around the settlement that still would enclose Palestinian land.

Israel says it needs the barrier to prevent Palestinian suicide bombers and other attackers from infiltrating.

Palestinians charge that the route of the barrier, dipping into the West Bank, amounts to an Israeli land grab.

LAND SEIZURES: The Israeli government secretly approved a measure last summer that says it may seize land in East Jerusalem owned by Palestinians who live elsewhere, the government and a lawyer for the Palestinians said.

The lawyer said the decision could affect hundreds of Palestinian property owners and thousands of acres of land.

"This is state theft, pure and simple," said Hanna Nasser, the mayor of neighboring Bethlehem, home to many of the Palestinians who could lose land they own in Jerusalem.

--Information from the New York Times was used in this report.

[Last modified January 25, 2005, 01:21:08]