Jack Khoury, haaretz.com
Image from article, with caption: An Israeli firefighter dousing a fire set on Sunday by a device launched from Gaza. Hamas is mulling a cessation of these attacks if Israel rolls back border crossing restrictions.
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Representatives of Hamas and Islamic Jihad are continuing to pursue contacts with Egyptian intelligence officials to resolve the hostilities between Israel and the Gaza Strip.
The formula they propose would bring an end to the incendiary kites and balloons that are being flown from Gaza across the border into Israel – in return for easing of the blockade that Israel and Egypt have imposed on the Strip.
Such an agreement would also involve the opening of the Egyptian border crossing with Gaza at Rafah on a regular basis, as well as additional steps that Hamas is demanding.
"We don't want to return to the situation in which we were before the kites, because it was a bad situation in any case and it prompted us to hold marches [along the border fence], and from that, the matter of the kites developed," a senior Hamas political official told Haaretz. "What is being offered to us now is a return to the same circumstances and that won't change anything."
Hamas is not seeking a confrontation with Israel, the official added, and it understands that the continued dispatch of the fiery kites and balloons into Israel could lead to such an eventuality.
"From an operational and public diplomacy [JB emphasis] standpoint, it's easier for Israel to deal with rockets rather than balloons," he said, "so it will do everything to push Hamas and the other factions into this corner. Those in Hamas don’t want to play into Israel's hands." ...
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