Source: Al-Manar TV, 7-3-2008
Hamas said on Friday that any truce with "Israel" must be "simultaneous" and guarantee an end to the punitive blockade on the Gaza Strip, which is controlled by the Islamic resistance movement. "Any truce must be reciprocal and simultaneous and carry guarantees for an end to the "Israeli" aggression and blockade on Gaza," spokesman Fawzi Barhoum told AFP. "This is what we told all the parties, namely Egypt," Barhoum said.
His comments came a day after delegations from Hamas and Islamic Jihad were in Egypt for talks on a possible Egyptian-mediated ceasefire in the conflict with "Israel". At the same time, US Middle East envoy David Welch was in Cairo for talks with officials on how to secure a ceasefire.
Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas on Wednesday said after talks with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that "intense efforts" were being made to reach a truce and that Welch would visit Cairo for that purpose. More than 130 Palestinians have been killed since February 27 when "Israel" launched massive raids on the blockaded Gaza Strip.
Separately, Barhoum dismissed Egypt's decision to build a concrete wall along its border with Gaza as an "internal Egyptian affair in which we are not intervening."
An Egyptian official said on Thursday that Egypt has started work on a three-meter-high wall, and that a three-kilometer section had already been built. The official said it was aimed at preventing a repetition of a January breach, when Gaza-based activists blew up the Rafah border allowing hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to enter Egypt to buy supplies.