Israel Matzav

Agreement to stop Kassams from Gaza reached

YNet is reporting that the Palestinian terror organizations have reached an agreement to stop Kassam fire from Gaza as of midnight tonight.

Despite the supposed agreement, Islamic Jihad and a number of groups affiliated with 'moderate Palestinian President' Mahmoud Abbas Abu Mazen's Fatah said that they would not stop the Kassam fire.

After a number of meetings of the 'high committee of Palestinian factions in Gaza,' the organizations allegedly agreed to adopt a Hamas initiative declaring a cessation of Kassam rocket launchings "in order not to give Israel an excuse to continue the escalation of operations against Palestinians."

But here's the weird part (and I'm just going to quote YNet directly because I think this undermines the entire 'agreement' so I don't want to give it to you exactly as I got it):

The committee decided that, in the event of an Israel offensive following cessation of rocket fire, it will be a Palestinian prerogative to attack Israel. The committee further agreed not to publish the terms of the decision in order to prevent internal political responses and "in order to prevent Israel from creating a provocation that would force Palestinians to violate these terms."

So there's an agreement, but no one knows what it say, and if Islamic Jihad (for example) shoots rockets at Israel and Israel mounts an 'offensive' it will be the 'Palestinian' prerogative to attack Israel. Got that?

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 12:36 AM