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Hamas officials have proposed a year-long ceasefire with Israel, including an end to the blockade of the Gaza Strip and an opening of all border crossings in the latest round of peace talks brokered by Egypt.
The proposal was made during a meeting on Sunday between Palestinian factions and Egyptian mediators and contrasts with an 18-month truce called for by Israel.
Israel has said under its plan there would be a partial opening of the border, a condition which the Hamas delegation in Cairo has rejected.
The two sides are engaged in indirect Egyptian-brokered talks to build on a fragile ceasefire in Gaza after the halt of more than three weeks of Israeli assault on the territory.
Ayman Taha, a Hamas official, said their counter-offer of a year-long truce would be discussed further with the group's leadership in Damascus.
"We will study the matter again and it will be brought back to the Egyptians," he told MENA, the official Egyptian news agency on Sunday, without elaborating on the other provisions of the possible deal.
Amos Gilad, Israel's top negotiator on Gaza, was in Cairo last week for talks.
The 22-day Israeli offensive which began on December 27 killed more than 1,300 Palestinians and left more than 5,000 others wounded.
Taha said the discussions with Omar Suleiman, the Egyptian intelligence chief, covered the nature and length of the truce, a system to monitor the border crossings and how reconstruction would be carried out.
"We are ready for any help in this issue [of reconstruction], but we are not willing to make it a political issue or use it for blackmail," he told the news agency.
Hamas has rejected the presence of Israeli monitors at border crossings, calling instead for monitors to come from the EU and Turkey.
PHOTO CAPTION
The green flag of the Islamic Resistance Movement Hamas flutters next to a Palestinian flag on a hill in Jabalia just north of Gaza City.
Al-Jazeera
