Israel and Hamas ratchet up rhetoric

Israel, meanwhile, yesterday started releasing 227 Palestinian prisoners it said were being freed as a goodwill gesture to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

Top Israeli officials said the government is interested in continuing the Egyptian-mediated ceasefire but also warned that it would not hesitate to use force if attacked by militants.

"If the lull continues, Israel will respect it. If the opposite occurs, we will react... with the appropriate military means," Amos Gilad, an advisor to Defence Minister Ehud Barak, said as reported by Agence France-Presse.

Hamas political supremo Khaled Meshaal made it clear on Sunday the Islamists were unlikely to renew the truce. "I think for the majority of forces, the truce ends after Dec. 19 and will not be renewed," he said in a television interview with the movement's Al-Quds satellite television.

Prisoners freed
In another development of yesterday, Israel released 224 Palestinian prisoners in a gesture to moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, and jubilant detainees waving Palestinian flags jumped on the roof of one of the buses carrying them to freedom. Buses carrying former inmates drove from an Israeli prison camp in the West Bank to a nearby military checkpoint where hundreds of anxious relatives waited for a first glimpse.

Also yesterday, Abbas aides told The Associated Press that he was poised to schedule general elections in the West Bank and Gaza in the first half of 2009. Holding polls might prove to be problematic because Hamas might not permit them to be held in Gaza.