By DPA
Jerusalem : Responding to Palestinian calls for a truce in Gaza, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert reiterated that Israel would stop its attacks if rocket fire from the area at its southern towns and villages stopped.
“If there is no Qassam fire at Israel, there will be no Israeli attack on Gaza. We don’t rise in the morning and think how to attack Gaza. If they don’t attack us, we won’t attack them,” Olmert said after meeting Hungarian President Laszlo Solyom Wednesday.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas had earlier called on Israel to accept a truce with the radical Islamic Hamas movement ruling Gaza. Addressing a press conference with Solyom, who met Abbas at his West Bank headquarters in Ramallah before visiting Israel, the Palestinian president said that he would resume negotiations with Israel after calm returned to the Gaza Strip.
He had broken off the talks with Israel, after Israeli retaliatory military operations in the Gaza Strip against the ongoing, daily rocket attacks had left some 127 Palestinians dead over the past week.
“The negotiations should definitely resume but after there is calm,” Abbas had told the news conference, adding Egypt was trying to convince Hamas to suspend the rocket attacks and broker a truce.
Over 120 Palestinians and two Israeli soldiers were killed in the Israeli offensive on Gaza Strip since last Wednesday. In this period, Palestinian militants have showered Israel with more than 250 rockets, including Grad-type Katyushas.