Palestinian group, The Popular Resistance Committees, rejects Cairo truce

In a statement sent to the media in Gaza City on Friday, the PRC, which was not represented at the Cairo talks, said: "We totally reject the results of the Cairo meeting, having not
taken part, and we are not bound to respect the outcome."

Wail al-Dahduh, an Aljazeera correspondent in Gaza, quoted Muhammad Abd al-Aal, a PRC spokesman, as saying the committees consider Saturday to be the last day for truce with Israel.

The PRC said the Palestinian Authority (PA) was trying to "marginalise" the group by excluding it from the Cairo dialogue, al-Aal was quoted as saying.

Retaliation if attacked

The PRC emerged as an armed resistance faction in the early days of the second Palestinian uprising and later sought to change to a political faction, al-Dahduh said, but the PA still considers it a military group and not a political faction.

In practical terms, the PRC pledged not to initiate attacks against Israel but said it would retaliate if they were attacked, al-Dahduh reported.

In Thursday's talks, presided over by Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas, the 13 main factions pledged to maintain an informal truce until the end of the year but stopped short of declaring a full ceasefire.

The PRC said it already had respected a two-month calm, which expires on Saturday.

Seriousness

"We have shown our seriousness to the world, despite the Zionist violations which have continued to spill Palestinian blood, the Zionist threats against the al-Aqsa mosque (in east Jerusalem), the ongoing construction of the apartheid wall and the arrests," the group said, referring to the third holiest site in Islam and the West Bank separation barrier.

"Our patience is up and it is time that our fighters make the
enemy pay for these two months," it said. "The rest days we gave the Zionists are over and they will soon have to return to their bunkers because our explosives and our rockets will be activated."

The group was formed at the start of the uprising in September 2000 by security elements from the mainstream Fatah movement but has since attracted dissidents from all the principal Palestinian factions.

The PRC is said to be responsible for an attack on a US diplomatic convoy in Gaza that killed three Americans in October 2003.
Aljazeera + Agencies

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