Israel rejects Hamas truce offer

Jerusalem, Israel said yesterday it would not agree to a temporary cease-fire in the Gaza Strip that Hamas could use to rearm, underscoring the gap between the two sides in Egyptian brokered talks. Hamas has rejected an open-ended truce, seeking instead a more limited six-month agreement that could be renewed, Arab diplomats said. Israel will not accept a situation where Hamas gets a temporary period of quiet just to rearm and regroup and that ends


with further rocket barrages on Israel,” said Mark Regev, spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.Israel seeks a durable quiet that contains a total absence of hostile fire from Gaza into Israel and a working mechanism to prevent Hamas from rearming.Israel said senior defence official Amos Gilad would travel to Cairo today for talks on a cease-fire after 19 days of fighting in which more than 1000 Palestinians have been killed, along with 13 Israelis.Meanwhile, Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden has called for a jihad over the Israeli offensive in Gaza in an audio tape that appeared on Islamist websites. The Saudi-born militant said the global financial crisis had exposed the waning US influence in world affairs and would in turn weaken its ally, Israel. The authenticity of the tape, produced and released yesterday by al-Qaeda’s media arm, As-Sahab, could not immediately be verified but the voice sounded like that of bin Laden. Backing its demand that any cease-fire ensure that Hamas cannot rearm, Israel sent warplanes to drop bunker-busting bombs on smuggling tunnels under the Gaza-Egypt border. In the 22-minute tape, bin Laden said the US was losing its dominant position in the world and that this was due to al-Qaeda’s campaign. Bin Laden last spoke on an audio tape in May, also focusing on Gaza and calling on Muslims to try to help end the blockade. The al-Qaeda leader has placed growing emphasis on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and yesterday’s tape was accompanied by a still picture of him and al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem, Islam’s third-holiest shrine.