2006年VOA标准英语-Israel Rejects Palestinian Truce Offer

（单词翻译）

By Robert Berger
Jerusalem
24 November 2006
 
Palestinian factions¹ have proposed a truce² with Israel aimed at ending months of fighting in the Gaza Strip. But Israel has rejected the offer, as we hear from Robert Berger at the VOA bureau in Jerusalem.

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Residents of Sderot in southern Israel run for shelter as a siren is heard signaling an incoming rocket, 24 Nov. 2006

The ruling Hamas group and other Palestinian militant³ factions including Islamic Jihad have agreed to halt rocket attacks against Israel. However, the truce, or "hudna" in Arabic, is conditional⁴ on Israel halting all military operations against the Palestinians in Gaza.

"If the Israeli is ready to stop their aggression⁵, so at that time we can give [a] long term hudna or long-term truce, and after that let time heal," said Palestinian Foreign Minister Mahmoud al-Zahar.

Palestinian rocket attacks and the kidnapping of an Israeli soldier in June have prompted a five-month Israeli offensive in Gaza, and militants⁶ have suffered heavy casualties in almost daily raids.

Israel is not prepared to ease up. It says a ceasefire would be meaningless unless Palestinian terror groups disarm⁷. Israeli spokeswoman Miri Eisen says the Palestinians are smuggling⁸ tons of weapons through tunnels under the Egyptian border, and a truce would enable them to rearm for the next round of conflict.

"The smuggling of weapons through these tunnels of terror into the Gaza Strip is a threat," said Eisen. "These are potential weapons that would be exceedingly lethal⁹, even more than the rockets that we see nowadays."

So despite the truce offer, violence is continuing unabated. Rockets were fired at Israel, and Palestinians say a 10-year-old boy was killed in an Israeli raid.

And underscoring the angry mood in Gaza, hundreds of Palestinians buried a 64-year-old grandmother who blew herself up in a failed attack against Israeli troops. She was by far the oldest of more than a hundred suicide bombers¹⁰ who have attacked Israelis since the Palestinian uprising began six years ago.