Cairo - Egypt on Monday downplayed media reports that it was
brokering mediation talks between the Palestinian Hamas movement and
Israel, saying it could do little without commitment from the parties
themselves.
'The ability to destroy is greater than the ability to construct,
when one party wants positive reconciliation, its ability is much
weaker compared to the party that wants to disrupt these efforts,'
said Foreign Ministry spokesman Hossam Zaki.
The London-based al-Hayat newspaper reported on Monday that Egypt
was exerting efforts to 'spread calm' in the Gaza Strip.
A six-month Egyptian-brokered truce between Israel and the
Palestinian militant organizations in the Gaza Strip came to an end
Friday, leading to a surge of missile attacks on southern Israeli
towns and villages. That was matched by Israeli airstrikes on rocket-
launching squads.
By Monday afternoon, only two mortar shells had been launched from
the Strip, compared to 27 rockets and mortars on Sunday.
According to a senior Hamas official, Egyptian officials contacted
Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip, earlier on Monday to allow fuel
and food into the Gaza Strip and asked the radical Islamist movement
to stop attacks for 24 hours. Hamas accepted the Egyptian request,
Ayman Taha said.
Relations between Cairo and Hamas have reportedly been icy in
recent weeks, with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak angry with Hamas
because it embarrassed him by abandoning Egyptian-hosted
reconciliation talks with President Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah late this
year.
Those talks between the two rival Palestinian camps had been
scheduled to take place in Cairo in early November but were cancelled
at the last minute after Hamas announced it was boycotting them.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's spokesman, Mark Regev,
declined to comment on the al-Hayat report.
'You have to ask the Egyptians that question,' he said.
But a senior Israeli government official, who spoke on condition
of anonymity, said he had information contradicting the report and
saying that all contacts between Cairo and Hamas were currently
frozen.
He said the Israeli defence ministry and prime minister's office
currently believed it was therefore impossible to rely on any
mediation from the Egyptian side.
'It's not in conformity with the information we have,' the
official told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.
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