Hamas to end cease-fire with Israel
The militant group that governs the Gaza Strip rules out an extension of a once-promising 6-month-old pact that had begun falling apart weeks ago.
Reporting from Jerusalem — Hamas declared a formal end to its cease-fire with Israel today, ruling out an extension of a 6-month-old pact that had begun fraying weeks ago with tit-for-tat attacks across Israel's border with the Gaza Strip.
Fawzi Barhoum, a spokesman for the militant group that governs Gaza, said the truce would expire at 6 a.m. Friday. He said it was not being renewed because "the enemy refused to comply" with promises to lift a crippling blockade of the Palestinian enclave and halt military attacks.
Hamas stopped short of threatening an immediate escalation of rocket and mortar attacks, and Israeli officials said they were reluctant to launch a major military offensive into the densely populated coastal territory.
But the collapse of the Egyptian-brokered accord diminished any hope of a long-term calm that could help Israel avoid friction with moderate Arab nations. It raised the threat of fresh strikes on southern Israeli towns within rocket range of Gaza and a tighter squeeze on the coastal strip, prolonging the hardships of 1.5 million Palestinians already deprived of adequate supplies of food and electricity.
Hamas, a militant offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, which emerged in the late 1980s, had observed several previous truces with Israel, all of them short-lived. This one appeared to hold more promise.
It was the first such arrangement to include an easing of the blockade, which Israel, backed by the United States and the European Union, imposed on Gaza and the West Bank after Hamas' rise to power in parliamentary elections in early 2006.
The West Bank blockade ended after a violent breakup of the Palestinian Authority's power-sharing government in June 2007 left the secular-led Fatah group in charge there and Hamas ruling Gaza.
Starting then, Israel intensified the Gaza blockade, calling the measure a response to almost-daily rocket attacks, and opened peace talks with the Fatah leader, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.
But the strategy failed to undermine Hamas' popularity in Gaza, weaken its grip on the territory or stop the rocket attacks.
The truce accord, which took effect June 19 after months of Egyptian mediation, was a turning point. Both sides were to halt their attacks, observing a "mutual and simultaneous calm." Israel was to gradually ease restrictions that had halted the flow of nearly all goods through Israeli-controlled border crossings during the previous 12 months.
