MIDDLE EAST: Israeli and Palestinian officials yesterday downplayed a report by the official Egyptian news agency that international-led efforts had brought the two sides close to a ceasefire, ahead of a more comprehensive agreement, writes Peter Hirschberg in Jerusalem
News agency MENA quoted unidentified high-level sources saying the US and Europe had helped the sides reach "an important understanding" that could serve as the basis for a "comprehensive settlement".
"There are a few correct elements but it's a little premature to say there's an agreement," an official in Prime Minister Mr Ariel Sharon's office said.
"We will respond positively if on the other side there will be arrangements for a ceasefire, a cessation of hostilities."
Israel Radio quoted Palestinian sources saying that talk of a truce between the sides was not exact. Some Palestinian officials said talks between the Palestinian Authority and militant groups were close to yielding a ceasefire, but that nothing had been finalised yet.
Egypt has been playing a role in trying to get militant groups to agree to cease attacks, and aides to Mr Sharon have said that if violence ends, then Israel will cease military activity in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
On the ground, however, violence flared yesterday after a period of relative calm following the death of Yasser Arafat, with four Palestinian militants and an Israeli soldier killed in Gaza.
The soldier was killed in a pre-dawn attack when Hamas militants detonated a bomb near an army outpost in the Strip. Hamas said it had lured the soldiers into a trap via an elaborate plan including a double agent. Hamas later announced two of its members had not returned from the gun battle that ensued at the site of the attack. Later in the day, two members of the militant Islamic Jihad group were killed by missiles fired from Israeli aircraft.
The Egyptian report of an Israeli-Palestinian ceasefire comes against the backdrop of warmer ties between Cairo and Jerusalem in recent days. Earlier this week, Egypt released an Israeli convicted on espionage charges, who had served eight years of a 15-year term, and in exchange Israel released six Egyptian students arrested earlier this year after crossing into Israel, allegedly to carry out attacks.
Israel's planned withdrawal from Gaza explains the improvement in ties between the two countries.