Israeli troops withdrew from the Gaza Strip as an unexpected truce took hold Sunday, but two major Palestinian militant groups, saying they had no intention of stopping their attacks, fired volleys of homemade rockets into Israel.The rocket attacks by Hamas and Islamic Jihad tempered hopes for a lasting cease-fire, which was meant to end five months of deadly clashes. The rockets landed in open fields and caused no injuries.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas ordered his security chiefs to send their forces to the Gaza border area to prevent further rocket attacks, according to Palestinian security officials. "The instructions are clear. Anyone violating the national agreement will be considered to be breaking the law," said Lt. Gen. Abdel Razek Mejaidie.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert ordered the army to show restraint in the face of the rockets. "Even though there are still violations of the cease-fire by the Palestinian side, I have instructed our defense officials not to respond, to show restraint, and to give this cease-fire a chance to take full effect," he said.
A senior Israeli official said Israel would wait a few hours to see if the attacks were isolated breaches or a full-scale violation of the agreement before deciding whether to respond. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
The truce, if it holds, would be a coup for Abbas, who has been trying for months to end the violence in Gaza. He has also been working to end crippling international sanctions imposed on the Palestinian Authority when the militant Hamas group won January parliamentary elections and formed a Cabinet.
The two sides announced the truce late Saturday after Abbas telephoned Olmert with an agreement from Palestinian militant groups to halt rocket fire and other violence from Gaza. Olmert pledged to end the military offensive in Gaza, launched in June after Hamas militants in Gaza conducted a cross-border raid on a military outpost, killing two soldiers and capturing one other. The violence has claimed the lives of more than 300 Palestinians and five Israelis. Most of the Palestinians killed have been militants, but scores of civilians have been killed as well, including 19 members of an extended family killed earlier this month in a botched Israeli artillery attack.
Ahead of the new agreement, which took effect at 6 a.m. Sunday, Israel pulled all its forces out of Gaza, the army said. Dozens of tanks and armored vehicles were parked just over the border in a military staging ground in southern Israel early Sunday. But Israeli police reported at least four rockets fired at the Israeli town of Sderot and an Associated Press photographer in the border town heard at least two more strikes. Another AP photographer in the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoun heard several rockets fired throughout the morning. "Let's hope that's just the problems of the beginning," said Olmert's spokeswoman, Miri Eisin. "But if Israel is attacked, we will respond. If there are Palestinian factions that are not part of the cease-fire, it's hard to see how the cease-fire will hold."
Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas said he had contacted the leaders of all the Palestinian factions Sunday and they reassured him they were committed to the truce. "There is a 100 percent effort to make this work, but there is no guarantee of 100 percent results," said Ghazi Hamad, a spokesman for the Hamas-led government.
Hamas' own militants claimed responsibility for firing rockets into Israel after the truce took hold, clouding prospects for the truce's longevity. The Hamas militants said they continued their attacks because some Israeli troops remained inside Gaza, an accusation Israel denied. "(We) reiterate that our attacks against the enemy continue," the group said in a statement posted on its Web site.
Islamic Jihad also claimed responsibility for firing rockets into Israel and a spokesman, Abu Hamza, denied his group had signed on to the truce, contradicting statements from Islamic Jihad leaders.
Israeli forces originally entered Gaza to try to recover the soldier captured in a June 25 cross-border raid, but they soon widened their objectives to target militants firing rockets into Israel. The violence cut short efforts by Olmert and Abbas to restart peace talks. A truce could help create momentum for new talks. "We welcome the announcement and see this as a positive step forward," White House spokesman Alex Conant said Saturday evening in Washington. "We hope it leads to less violence for the Israeli and Palestinian people."
Israel has no ties with the Hamas government, which rejects the Jewish state's right to exist, but it considers Abbas an acceptable negotiating partner. He and Olmert agreed months ago to meet, but Abbas has balked at setting a date without assurances the meeting would yield real dividends for him, such as a release of Palestinian prisoners Israel holds. Olmert has said no prisoners would be released to Hamas before the captured soldier is freed.
Well, there's some good news, anyway.