Bracing Cease-Fire, Abbas Meets Hamas Leader

Seeking to cement a cease-fire declared a week ago by Palestinian militant groups, Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas met for the first time Saturday with Sheik Ahmed Yassin, the spiritual leader of Hamas.

Further bolstering the cease-fire, a smaller Palestinian militant faction known as the Popular Resistance Committee announced Saturday it would join in the three-month hudna, or truce, declared by larger groups such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

Although relatively small, the Popular Resistance Committee was responsible for a number of attacks during the course of the 33-month intifada, including the blowing up of several Israeli tanks. On Wednesday, members from the group fired antitank rockets at a Jewish settlement in the Gaza Strip, injuring four Israelis.

At a meeting of the Palestinian Cabinet in Gaza City on Saturday, officials expressed hope that the cease-fire would hold. But fear over its fragility was apparent.

The Cabinet condemned an Israeli raid in the West Bank town of Kalkilya on Thursday that killed a senior local leader of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, another militant faction.

Until now, Al Aqsa leaders have been divided as to whether to go along with the truce. On Saturday, a statement purporting to speak for the entire group said it would not respect the cease-fire.

It was not possible to determine immediately whether all local branches of the group, linked to Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat’s Fatah faction, agreed with that stance.

Traditionally, Hamas and Islamic Jihad have been much more tightly disciplined than the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade and better able to persuade members to abide by decisions of their leadership.

“We hope we will have a consensus by all the groups for the continuation of the hudna,” Nabil Amr, the Palestinian Authority information minister, said after the Cabinet session.

The half-hour meeting between the Palestinian prime minister and the Hamas spiritual leader took place in Yassin’s home in a Gaza City slum. Neither man made any statement afterward.

Abbas has been treading a delicate line in his dealings with Hamas and the other militant groups. So far, he has opted to negotiate with them, saying that the wide-ranging crackdown urged by Israel would be tantamount to a Palestinian civil war.

Late Friday, a Palestinian militant shot at Palestinian police trying to detain him in connection with a mortar attack against a Jewish settlement, according to Palestinian police. Three people were wounded in the Gaza Strip incident.

If the cease-fire crumbles, Israel has made it plain that it will move harshly against the militant groups. In the weeks prior to the cease-fire, Israel killed nearly a dozen Hamas activists and tried to assassinate one of its senior political leaders, Abdulaziz Rantisi.

In moving ahead with the American-backed peace initiative known as the “road map,” Abbas has also had to contend with Arafat’s criticism of the plan. While sidelined diplomatically, the Palestinian Authority president still commands strong popular support, and his opinions carry considerable weight with ordinary Palestinians.

Speaking to reporters at his damaged compound in the West Bank town of Ramallah, Arafat said the Israeli withdrawal from the town of Bethlehem last week had not made it any easier for Palestinians to move about freely. He said a delegation coming from Bethlehem to visit him had taken four hours to make what should have been a half-hour trip to Ramallah.

“The siege has increased, and our people’s troubles have also increased,” he said.

Arafat, who has not left his compound for a year, responded with disdain when asked about reports that Israel might allow him to travel to Gaza sometime soon.

“From one prison to another prison?” he asked. “I do not beg anybody.”

In Gaza, Palestinian officials said late Saturday they still did not know the circumstances of an explosion earlier in the day that killed a Palestinian man. The Israeli army also said it did not know the cause of the blast, which occurred close to an Israeli patrol.

Palestinian security officials were investigating whether the man killed had been trying to plant a bomb or whether he had triggered an explosive device left behind when Israeli troops withdrew from the area last week.