Islamic Jihad vows to work toward ending Gaza infighting
CAIRO: Egypt is pushing for the formation of a truce monitoring body with the participation of the rival Palestinian factions to shore up a nearly three-week-old truce in Gaza, a top official said on Monday.
Egypt has drafted a memorandum listing the principles and the mechanisms to consolidate the ceasefire, the official told the state Mena news agency.
A monitoring commission will be set up, under the auspices of Egypt, to ensure the application of the accord. Egypt has been holding a series of separate meetings with the rival factions in a bid to consolidate the ceasefire which went into effect on May 16 after more than 50 people were killed in internal fighting in Gaza.
The official said that Egypt hopes to bring the factions together for direct talks in the second half of June.
A Palestinian source close to the talks said Egypt was also seeking agreement on restictions on the bearing of arms in Gaza, where mounting lawlessness has seen a spate of abductions of Westerners, most recently BBC correspondent Alan Johnston. The memorandum proposes a ban on the carrying of arms in residential areas, school buildings and hospitals, and on military-style demonstrations, the source said.
Representatives of the Palestinian faction Islamic Jihad agreed in talks with Egyptian officials to work to end factional fighting in Gaza, the official MENA news agency reported on Monday.
A Jihad delegation and the head of Egypt s intelligence service, Omar Suleiman, wrapped up talks on Sunday with a complete convergence of views on the questions discussed, MENA quoted an Egyptian official as saying.
Islamic Jihad has committed to working towards unifying Palestinian ranks, the official added. The delegation headed by Ziad Nakhala, the movement s deputy secretary general, arrived in Cairo on Saturday for a series of talks Egypt is hosting with rival factions to cement a truce in the Gaza Strip.
Last week, representatives of President Mahmud Abbas s Fatah party and its main rival, the ruling Islamist Hamas movement, met separately with Egyptian officials.
On Friday, a Hamas spokesman told AFP that Palestinian factions were due to hold direct talks in Cairo in mid-June.
A broad dialogue involving all of the Palestinian factions will be held in Cairo in mid-June, the Islamist group s spokesman Ayman Taha said.
Israel has over the last two weeks intensified its targetted killings of militants, mainly from Hamas and Islamic Jihad, in the Gaza Strip because of repeated rocket fire at the Jewish state.
