European mediators table truce proposal with Hamas, give int'l guarantees

DAMASCUS, (PIC)-- Arab official sources revealed that there are Turkish and European initiatives offered to the Hamas Movement in Damascus urging it to stop rocket attacks in exchange for a long-term truce including the opening of all Gaza crossings with international guarantees. The sources told the Quds Press that Turkish officials who accompanied premier Recep Erdogan during his visit to Syria met with Palestinian political leaders affiliated with Hamas and Islamic Jihad and suggested ideas related to the calm with Israel. The sources added that there were also indirect European attempts through Norwegian and French mediators in the same context, pointing out that the Hamas leadership in Damascus reiterated the same ideas and truce conditions highlighted earlier on Wednesday by Palestinian premier Ismail Haneyya. The sources also noted that other Turkish shuttle diplomacy visits are expected to be made after Erdogan's meetings with Egyptian, Syrian and Saudi officials. For his part, Hamas official Osama Abu Khaled told the Quds Press in Damascus that his Movement is confident of victory over Israel's aggression and massacres, stressing that the Movement would not give under the bombardment what it had already rejected under the siege. Abu Khaled also underlined that the Israeli leaders reconsidered their decisions regarding the aggression waged on Gaza after they exhausted all their military options and found out that a land invasion would inflict heavy losses on Israel. The Hamas official also castigated PA chief Mahmoud Abbas's passive political positions, saying that Abbas had a historic opportunity to turn the table on everyone after Israel waged its aggression on Gaza through announcing the withdrawal from the Annapolis agreement and seeking a national consensus instead of voicing decorative positions to cover his disability. The Israeli Yediot Ahronot newspaper on Wednesday had said that the war on Gaza increased significantly Hamas's popularity among Palestinian to the contrary of what Israeli leaders had expected. Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum stated in a press release received by the PIC that the support and solidarity throughout the world with Gaza and the Palestinian resistance confirmed the decline of the Zionist project and the victory and popularity of resistance. "If the Zionist enemy wants to destroy Gaza and the resistance agenda, and uproot Hamas, it should equip itself for an all-out war on all Arab and Islamic people all over the world and rip up the love of resistance from their hearts because Hamas is not only an organization or a movement, but also a phenomenon rooted in the hearts of the Arab and Islamic nation," Barhoum underscored.