Palestinian militant groups today rejected a new deal to ease Israel's military presence in the Gaza Strip and a West Bank city in return for a reduction of violence.
The agreement was sealed in a meeting last night between Israeli Defence Minister Mr Binyamin Ben-Eliezer and a Palestinian delegation headed by Interior Minister Mr Abdel Razzak al-Yahya and Mr Yasser Arafat's security adviser, Mr Mohammed Dahlan.
The deal, which would call for an Israeli pullout from Bethlehem and parts of Gaza, yielded the first significant progress in months towards tackling nearly two years of bloodshed in which at least 1,503 Palestinians and 588 Israelis have died.
But Palestinian militant groups - including Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - said they rejected even a limited cessation of their 22-month-old uprising against Israeli occupation and would continue to mount attacks.
"The resistance will find ways to pursue the fight without clashing with the Palestinian Authority," senior Hamas official Mr Abdel-Aziz al-said. "Our rifles will remain directed against the Zionist enemy and only against the Zionist enemy".
Islamic Jihad leader Mr Abdallah al-Shami called the move a "political gamble". Both groups have led a campaign of suicide bombings that has killed scores of Israelis in the uprising.