Three Palestinian militant groups are expected to announce a halt to attacks on Israel within 24 hours, a top Islamic Jihad official said today.
The move will be a msassive boost to the internationally sponsored peace plan for the Middle East after Israel and the Palestinians reached a disengagement deal in the Gaza Strip and Hamas said it would suspend attacks on Israelis.
"We expect to declare the final agreement in the coming 24 hours," said senior Islamic Jihad official Mr Mohammed al-Hindi.
"We accept the idea and we are now putting the last finishing [touches] on the paper," he said.
Involved in the negotiations to secure a ceasefire in Egypt are the Islamic Jihad, Hamas, and the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades of the mainstream Fatah movement.
But at least one radical group said it would not abide by any ceasefire.
"We do not agree to stop the resistance against the Israeli occupation," said Mr Jamil al-Madalawi, a senior member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).
Meanwhile Israeli Education Minister Mr Limor Livnat warned against expecting too much of the truce, which Israel fears may merely give the militants it has been aggressively attacking a chance to regroup.
"No ceasefire can replace a total dismantling ... of the entire terror infrastructure," Mr Livnat told Israel Radio.
The deal on an Israeli troop pullback in Gaza was announced before today's visit to the region by US national security adviser Ms Condoleezza Rice.
Ms Rice, viewed in Israel as one of its strongest backers in Washington, is likely to press Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas in talks in the West Bank on today to dismantle Hamas and other militant groups as mandated by the road map.
Against the backdrop of US pressure and Israeli attacks on it senior militants, Hamas founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin said his group "has reached a decision to call a truce, or a suspension of fighting activities".
But he said a truce would carry conditions and be declared only after Hamas and other militant groups agreed on a joint statement in a 33-month-old Palestinian uprising for statehood.
A senior Israeli government source said a Hamas ceasefire would not be "worth the paper it's written on".
US Secretary of State Colin Powell said the United States would withhold judgment until Hamas formally declared a truce.
But he hailed the deal on Gaza. "This is a very positive development," Mr Powell said in Washington yesterday. "It reflects the kind of movement that the president and the other leaders called for."