Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas won a commitment from militant groups in the occupied Gaza Strip yesterday to maintain a truce with Israel that has been hit by a flare-up of violence. Abbas sealed the pledge in talks with leaders of 14 Palestinian political factions including the militant group Hamas and the smaller Islamic Jihad. But militants said they would still respond to any Israeli attacks.Israeli warplanes broke the sound barrier over Gaza throughout the talks, which came a day after an Israeli aircraft fired three missiles at a Palestinian rocket crew in Gaza in response to mortar fire at a Jewish settlement. That was the latest escalation of Israeli-Palestinian violence since Abbas coaxed militants into the truce he agreed with Israel in February. Israel wants Abbas to enforce calm to ease a planned Israeli pullout from Gaza starting in August.
"So far we are committed to calm...but if they (the Israelis) violate it, we will respond. If they abide by it, we will abide by it," said Khaled Al-Batsh, an Islamic Jihad leader. Officials from Hamas, which is sworn to the destruction of the Jewish state, said the group would also maintain calm if Israel did the same. But a Hamas spokesman, Sami Abu Zuhri, said: "There will be a reaction to every (Israeli) assault."