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Hamas leader says truce talks near successful end

Reuters - Tuesday, June 17

GAZA - Senior Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh said on Monday a successful end was in sight in Egyptian-sponsored talks on a truce in the Gaza Strip between his Islamist group and Israel.

In separate remarks, a Palestinian official familiar with the Egyptian mediation efforts said a declaration on a ceasefire, or a period of calm, was very near.

"The talks under way in Egypt on calm are nearing an end, an end that would bring about what the Palestinian people aspire to -- a lifting of the siege, the opening of the crossings and an end to the aggression," Haniyeh told a gathering in Gaza.

"We are committed to these demands ... A reciprocal and simultaneous calm that begins in Gaza and then extends to the West Bank," Haniyeh said.

A few hours later, Hamas, which seized control of the Gaza Strip a year ago, said it fired a rocket into the Israeli city of Ashkelon, wounding one Israeli.

An Israeli air strike then killed a Palestinian militant north of Gaza City. The Islamic Jihad group said he was part of a rocket launching squad. An Israeli army spokeswoman said the strike was aimed at militants who launched rockets into Israel.

The Islamist group and Israel have been locked in violence along the border that includes rocket attacks on southern Israel and Israeli raids and air strikes in the coastal territory.

Israel tightened restrictions on the flow of goods and people across the Gaza frontier after the Hamas takeover. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has said Gazans should not expect to lead normal lives while Israelis are under attack.

But unable to end cross-border rocket salvoes and wary of launching a broad ground offensive in the densely populated Gaza Strip that could cause heavy casualties on both sides, Israel has given Egypt the green light to negotiate a truce.

"We're giving a very serious chance to the initiative of the Egyptians. It's the preferred outcome from the point of view of the government," said Mark Regev, an Olmert spokesman.

But Regev reiterated that the Israeli army was preparing in case the Egyptian track failed, saying the government would not be deterred by domestic political uncertainty from launching a Gaza offensive if necessary.

CONDITIONS

Regev said a truce should meet three conditions: restrictions on smuggling of weapons into the Gaza Strip, a complete halt to attacks on Israel from the territory and movement in the case of an Israeli soldier seized by Gaza militants two years ago.

"It's clear you're not going to get to something even close to normality without the release of Gilad Shalit, and for calm, you need to see movement on the issue of Gilad Shalit," Regev said, stopping short of making a truce conditional on immediate freedom for the soldier.

Regev said the sequence of events would include an easing of the border blockade but he did not spell out the timetable.

The Palestinian official familiar with the ceasefire talks said Egypt had persuaded Israel that once the truce went into effect, efforts to win Shalit's release would be intensified.

For its part, the official said, Israel agreed to open Karni, the main commercial border crossing with the Gaza Strip, and allow more food, construction material and other goods into the territory for the operation of some 4,000 factories.

Egypt's Rafah crossing with the Gaza Strip would remain closed for now, the official said, and talks over getting it operational again would intensify once the ceasefire was in place.

Haniyeh said he hoped for a "happy ending" and voiced willingness to explore further a deal under which Shalit would be released as part of a swap for Palestinians jailed in Israel.

(Additional reporting by Adam Entous in Jerusalem, Editing by Ralph Boulton)

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