GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — The Palestinian militant groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad said yesterday they will not attack Israeli targets, but they refrained from officially joining a Palestinian cease-fire with Israel agreed upon during last week’s summit in Egypt.
Earlier, Israel agreed to repatriate all the Palestinians it deported to the Gaza Strip and Europe on terror accusations. The majority — 39 of about 55 — were exiled after a monthlong siege of the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem in 2002.
In the fast-paced moves to cement the truce, Israel said it will transfer control of the West Bank town of Jericho to the Palestinians this coming week. As part of the cease-fire, Israel has pledged to return five West Bank towns, including Tulkarm, Qalqiliya, Bethlehem and Ramallah, to Palestinian control within three weeks.
Leaders of Hamas and Islamic Jihad met yesterday with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, who is trying to keep the fragile cease-fire intact and end four years of fighting.
Hamas claimed responsibility for several mortar attacks on Jewish settlements in Gaza last week, fueling fears the militants were working to sabotage the cease-fire.
Some Palestinian officials blamed the Lebanon-based Islamist group Hezbollah for the attacks. The London Sunday Telegraph, citing Palestinian sources, reported yesterday that Hezbollah also was suspected of plotting to assassinate Mr. Abbas to derail the peace moves.
The threats to Mr. Abbas came indirectly, via Palestinian Hezbollah contacts, but were being taken “very, very seriously,” one official told the Telegraph.
“Many groups both here and outside do not want a cease-fire because a cease-fire means they will be without power,” he said.
Palestinian officials say they have intercepted e-mail and other correspondence showing the bank transactions through which Hezbollah has provided funds for Palestinian terrorists. Documents intercepted by Palestinian intelligence show Hezbollah cells have brought Palestinian students studying at Middle Eastern universities to Lebanon for terrorist training.
Reports last week suggested that Hezbollah operatives in Lebanon have been offering up to $100,000 to any Palestinian willing to carry out a suicide attack against Israel.
A senior Hezbollah leader yesterday denied the group was attempting to wreck an Israeli-Palestinian truce.
“We say over and over again that we are not concerned with the details of what the Palestinians do, whether they resist or not or whether they call a truce or not,” Hezbollah Deputy Secretary-General Sheik Naim Kassem told the Reuters news agency.
Mr. Abbas acknowledged that Hezbollah might threaten his life during a private meeting with two U.S. senators — Joseph R. Biden, Delaware Democrat, and John E. Sununu, New Hampshire Republican — just before last month’s Palestinian election, according to an unnamed congressional official quoted in Newsweek magazine.
A Hamas leader, Mahmoud Zahar, said the group will wait to see whether Israel stops its military activities and targeted killings of Palestinian militants before deciding whether to join the truce agreed upon by Mr. Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
Mr. Zahar said after meeting with Mr. Abbas that Hamas was “committed to what is called ’quietness’ ” until it determines whether Israel meets its truce obligations, including disclosing the criteria for releasing Palestinian prisoners.
“Up to this moment, we are committed to the previous agreement with Mr. Abbas, and we are going to see how the Israelis” will act, Mr. Zahar told the Associated Press.
The Israeli government official gave no timetable yesterday for the return home of the Palestinian exiles. One of the exiles, Ghanem Sweilem, told reporters in Gaza City that they expect to return home within a week or two.
“Today, we received good news that an agreement was reached with the Israeli side to allow us to return to our cities … each to his home, each to his city, within a short period of time,” said Mr. Sweilem, who was exiled from his home in the Balata refugee camp near Nablus more than two years ago.
The repatriation of the deportees is part of a larger controversy over the release of Palestinian prisoners. Israel has agreed to free 900 of the estimated 8,000 Palestinian prisoners it is holding, but the Palestinians want a broader release and freedom for those imprisoned before the September 1993 peace accords.
Five hundred of the 900 prisoners are expected to be released soon. A ministerial committee on prisoner releases is to meet today, Israel Radio said.
Israel has also agreed to lift travel restrictions in parts of the West Bank and abandon several major checkpoints as part of the transfer of control.
The cease-fire has coincided with renewed action on the part of the United States to get an internationally backed Mideast peace plan known as the “road map” back on track.
The new U.S. security coordinator for the Middle East, Army Lt. Gen. William E. Ward, is to make his first trip to the region later this month.
In Munich, NATO’s top diplomat said yesterday that the alliance should be ready to play a major role in supporting peace efforts between Israel and the Palestinians if asked for help. Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said he planned to go to Israel next week, the first such visit by a NATO secretary-general.
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