Palestinian Foreign Minister Nabil Shaath said he made the proposal during a meeting yesterday in Jordan with US Secretary of State Colin Powell.
Mr Shaath said the Palestinians asked the US to put pressure on Israel to commit to a halt in fighting. He said the militant groups Islamic Jihad and Hamas told Egyptian mediators that are ready to commit to a cease-fire.
The proposal followed a bloody week of fighting in the Gaza Strip in which 13 Israeli soldiers and 32 Palestinians died.
Israeli officials brushed off the Palestinian proposal. “We have to see actions, not declarations,” said a senior government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, insisting that Israel was only defending itself against Palestinian terror attacks.
The road map envisions an independent Palestinian state in 2005. As an interim step, it calls for an immediate halt to violence and for the Palestinians to dismantle violent groups.
