France retracts truce deal claim

French diplomatic efforts shown to be a fraud.

The office of Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, has retracted statements it made saying that Israel and the Palestinian Authority had accepted a Franco-Egyptian peace plan for Gaza.

Sarkozy's office intially said on Wednesday that the French president was "delighted by the acceptance by Israel and the Palestinian Authority of the Franco-Egyptian plan" presented in Sharm el-Sheikh by Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian president on Tuesday.

An official in Sarkozy's office said later in the day that the French statement was merely a reaction to Israel's positive comments about the plan and that it was not announcing Israel's acceptance of the Egyptian proposal.

Ahmed Youssef, the political adviser for Ismail Haniyeh, the Hamas leader, said that "as long as there is an occupation, there should be no restriction on resistance", adding that "when the Israeli aggression stops, the rockets into Israel will stop". More

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