Sunday 02 January 2005, 20:55 Makka Time, 17:55 GMT
The PLO chairman Mahmud Abbas's declaration was intended to stop the Palestinian resistance movements from firing homemade rockets towards Israel: "It is true that there are some issues regarding rockets, which are useless, but in return there is a grave, a very grave Israeli escalation."
But he found a negative response from Hamas, who declared:"Palestinian resistance movement Hamas has refused to halt attacks on Israeli targets, saying they are defending Palestinian victims from Israeli occupation policies".
A leader of the Hamas movement in the West Bank, Hasan Yusuf, speaking to Al-Jazeera from Ram Allah said:
"I don't think that Abu Mazin [Abbas] has taken note of the continuing Israeli killings against the Palestinian people."
"The real cause behind the aggression is not the Palestinian resistance, but the Israeli occupation."
"We should not portray a different picture to the world, and reinforce what they report by saying that the resistance is the aggressor," he also added.
Il Romanaccio at 6:43 PM