Bardawil: Truce in return for full Israeli withdrawal, freedom of all prisoners

December 23, 2006

Gaza - Salah Al-Bardawil, the spokesman of the Hamas-affiliated change and reform parliamentary bloc, on Saturday affirmed that Hamas offered a truce with the Hebrew state for ten years or more but only after full Israeli withdrawal from all lands occupied in 1967 including Jerusalem and releasing all prisoners.

Bardawil, in a press release, said that the Hamas' offer is clear and anything voiced by the "Zionist sources" should be received with doubt.

PA chief Mahmoud Abbas had attacked Hamas over this point depending on information published in a Hebrew paper.

"We are not talking about partial withdrawals from West Bank areas that would only return us to the Oslo agreement that partitioned the Palestine question," he underlined.

He pointed out that the truce came in harmony with articles of the national document, which spoke about gradual stages in solving the Palestine question, emphasizing that the Palestinian people would never surrender their right to historical Palestine.

Bardawil also refuted claims published by Hebrew daily Yedioth Ahronoth that Ahmed Yousef, political advisor to PA premier Ismail Haneyya, would take part in wording a draft agreement stipulating a five-year truce in return for Israeli withdrawals from West Bank cities.