Abbas Predicts a Cease-Fire Deal by the Weekend

Seeking to breathe life into an American-backed peace plan in advance of the arrival of national security advisor Condoleezza Rice, the government of Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas said a cease-fire with Hamas and other militant groups would probably be announced before her weekend visit.

But in what could be the waning days or hours before any truce is declared, Israel continued to hit hard at Hamas. Before dawn today, troops and tanks surrounded the home of a top bomb maker, Adnan Rul, south of Gaza City.

He was not home, but Palestinian witnesses said three people, including the son of the wanted man, were killed when a firefight broke out. The Israeli army would confirm only that a military operation had taken place in the area.

Rul has been on Israel’s wanted list for years, and early in the current Palestinian uprising, which began in the fall of 2000, he survived an Israeli attempt to assassinate him in a missile strike on his vehicle.

The attempted strike on Rul came amid other violence just prior to the latest scheduled round of high-level talks meant to propel the peace plan known as the “road map.”

On Thursday, an Israeli telephone worker was shot dead in an Arab community in northern Israel by a gunman who Israeli officials said was 15 years old. The Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, a militia linked to Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat’s Fatah faction, claimed responsibility for the attack.

Israeli police later foiled what could have been a catastrophic double suicide bombing. Two Palestinians carrying backpacks stuffed with explosives were shot dead inside the Green Line dividing Israel from the West Bank, and two other Palestinians suspected of being their handlers were arrested a short distance away.

In addition, several homemade rockets and mortar shells were fired at a Jewish settlement in the Gaza Strip and a community in Israel, the army said. Such rocket attacks have prompted harsh retaliation in the past, and Israel has warned that it will not tolerate a continuation of them if the peace plan moves forward and Palestinians take over security in Gaza.

Against a backdrop of continuing bloodshed, the Palestinian Authority and Hamas both indicated that a three-month halt to attacks against Israelis by Palestinian armed factions had been all but finalized.

Arafat told reporters in the West Bank town of Ramallah that the deal between the Palestinian Authority and the main militant groups, including Hamas and Islamic Jihad, would be unveiled soon. Kadoura Fares, a Palestinian lawmaker who has served as a go-between with the militant factions, has said the plan’s broad outlines have been agreed to.

“The cease-fire in question will be comprehensive, without exceptions,” he told Israel Radio. “If the atmosphere is good and Israel cooperates, I think this truce can become a framework” for a longer-term arrangement.

Hamas leader Abdulaziz Rantisi, who narrowly escaped an Israeli attempt to kill him this month, said deliberations were complete but that any formal word would have to wait a day or two.

The drawn-out cease-fire negotiations have highlighted the weakness of the Abbas government.

After weeks of fruitless efforts by the prime minister to secure a truce, jailed Palestinian militia leader Marwan Barghouti took the lead in talks with Hamas, directing the actions of intermediaries from his cell.

Barghouti is on trial in Israel in connection with terrorist attacks that killed dozens of Israelis.

The American-backed peace initiative calls for the dismantling of Palestinian militant groups, but Abbas’ government has chosen to seek a negotiated solution, if only a temporary one.

Israel has expressed deep misgivings about such a course of action, saying groups like Hamas, which has killed hundreds of Israelis in attacks over the past 33 months, will merely strengthen themselves during any hiatus.

Senior Israeli officials such as Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz and Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom have been particularly vocal in their concerns, saying the only real solution is for the Palestinian security establishment to tackle the militants head-on.

Shalom predicted that if attacks continued despite the cease-fire, Palestinian militant groups would simply claim they were isolated acts not sanctioned by the leadership.

“We have heard all this in the past,” he said. “We’ve already been to this movie.”

But Israeli media reports in recent days have said that some senior military field commanders hold a different view, believing that Israel has little to lose by seeing if the truce takes hold, since it can resume its own strikes against the militants at any time.

Israel has killed more than a dozen Hamas operatives and leaders since the peace plan was inaugurated June 4, some in armed confrontations and some in so-called targeted killings meant to preempt further attacks against Israelis.

Indirectly linked to the cease-fire talks between Palestinian leaders and the militant groups are negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians aimed at reaching terms under which Palestinian security forces would assume responsibility for maintaining order in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank town of Bethlehem.

Palestinian and Israeli officials have spoken optimistically of an accord before the arrival of Rice on Saturday night. During her two-day visit, she will meet with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and with Abbas.

In addition to the gradual pullback of Israeli troops, the peace plan mandates the dismantling of illegal settlement outposts.

About a dozen offshoots of larger settlements have been dismantled, but settlers have been erecting new ones on nearby hills.

The settlers have also been fighting outpost evacuations in court. In the latest such legal appeal, the Israeli Supreme Court issued a temporary injunction blocking the evacuation of an unauthorized outpost between the West Bank towns of Ramallah and Nablus.

Settlers have sought to block troops from removing outposts, but no serious violence has broken out.

Rabbis affiliated with the settlement movement have issued contradictory rulings on whether it is right to resist evacuation orders by physically confronting Israeli soldiers.