Disagreement seen between Hamas, Jihad over ceasefire

There are reports that unlike Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip, the Islamist group Islamic Jihad — usually considered more extreme than Hamas — is willing to accept an Arab-brokered ceasefire of the sort Israel already agreed to earlier this week.

Hamas remains adamantly opposed to a ceasefire, even as ground fighting is taking place between the Israel Defense Forces and Hamas forces in Gaza.

According to Army Radio, citing sources familiar with the ceasefire negotiations taking place with Egyptian interlocutors, Hamas is demanding the opening of the Rafah Border Crossing between Gaza and Egypt on a permanent basis.

Egypt, not Israel, has been resisting this demand. PA President Mahmoud Abbas, meanwhile, said yesterday that the agreement to open Rafah should be based on the 2005 situation, before Hamas’s takeover of the Strip, when PA security services manned the crossing and worked with Egyptian authorities.

Egypt is reportedly willing to open the crossing if it is placed in the hands of the Palestinian Authority. Hamas has, thus far, been unwilling to accept this arrangement.