Israel has proposed to Egyptian mediators an 18-month ceasefire with Hamas, but the Islamist group that controls Gaza said it wants a one-year ceasefire, a Hamas official said on Sunday.

“Hamas listened to the Israeli proposal presented by [Israeli defence ministry official] Amos Gilad, and with it a proposal for a ceasefire for a year-and-a-half, but Hamas presented a counterproposal of one year only,” Ayman Taha told reporters in Cairo after talks with Egyptian intelligence officials.

Taha reiterated the group’s calls for a lifting of the blockade imposed on the impoverished and devastated Gaza Strip by Israel and Egypt.

“It [Hamas] called for a complete lifting of the blockade and an opening of all the crossings,” Taha said.

Hamas proposed to Egyptian mediators that European and Turkish monitors be present at the border crossings, but rejected the presence of Israeli monitors, saying Israeli monitoring was “a large part of the problem”, according to Taha.

Asked if Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ forces would be present at the crossings, Taha said: “Hamas is the existing government in Gaza.” Hamas wrested control of the Gaza Strip from Abbas’ Fateh faction in fighting in 2007.

Egypt has ruled out opening the Rafah crossing in the absence of the Palestinian Authority and European Union observers.

Commenting on the talks, Hamas’ representative in Lebanon, Osama Hamdan, told Al Jazeera satellite television on Sunday that Hamas was unwilling to alter its positions to Israel’s benefit.

“The Israelis must understand that they will not achieve through politics what they failed to do militarily,” Hamdan said.

Rafah crossing closed

Egypt on Sunday closed its Rafah crossing point with the Gaza Strip, fearing that Israel may renew its attacks on smuggling tunnels that criss-cross the area, security officials said.

Egyptian authorities “got the wounded Palestinians and ambulances out of the crossing point after receiving information that there might be Israeli bombardments on the Palestinian side of the border,” one official said.

Israel has reserved the right to resume attacking smuggling tunnels on the border, as it did during its 22-day offensive on Gaza, after tunnel building resumed almost immediately after the ceasefire declared a week ago.

‘Stop talks with Israel’

The Palestinian Authority must end its peace talks and security coordination with Israel if it ever expects to reconcile with Hamas, one of the group’s senior officials said Sunday.

Hamdan also vowed that Hamas will continue to bring in arms to the Gaza Strip despite an Israeli blockade of the coastal territory.

Hamdan’s remarks are bound to complicate Arab efforts to reconcile the resistance group, which controls Gaza, and the Fateh faction, led by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, ruling the West Bank.

Hamdan is Hamas’ representative in Lebanon and is close to top Damascus-based leader Khaled Mishaal.

Saeb Erekat, a top aide to Abbas, rejected Hamdan’s statements and said talks should take place without any conditions.

“The important thing is to end the division and have a government of national unity to carry on the reconstruction of Gaza,” he told the Associated Press. “All Palestinian factions should come to the dialogue under the Egyptian umbrella without any conditions.” Hamas seized control of Gaza from Fateh by force in 2007, leaving the Palestinians divided between two governments.

To aid in reconstructing the battered seaside strip, Arab officials are looking to heal the rift between the Palestinians and bring them once more under a unity government.

Speaking at a rally in Beirut, Hamdan said his organisation welcomed an inter-Palestinian dialogue but linked reconciliation with Fateh to the Palestinian Authority ending peace talks with Israel and backing Hamas’ armed resistance against the Jewish state.

War crimes

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Sunday announced the formation of a special legal team to defend Israeli soldiers against potential war crimes charges stemming from the recent three-week offensive in the Gaza Strip.

The move reflected growing concerns by Israel that officers could be subject to international prosecution for the large number of civilian deaths in Gaza, despite the army’s claims that Hamas fighters caused the casualties by staging attacks from residential areas.

Speaking at the weekly meeting of his Cabinet, Olmert said Israel’s justice minister would lead a team of senior officials to coordinate the legal defence of anyone involved in the offensive.

“The state of Israel will fully back those who acted on its behalf,” Olmert said. “The soldiers and commanders who were sent on missions in Gaza must know that they are safe from various tribunals.”

In other developments, there was a wave of panic in Gaza, apparently set off by an Israeli Cabinet minister’s threat to assassinate Hamas leaders. Hamas called for calm, insisting the ceasefire was holding and that negotiators were in Egypt trying to consolidate the truce.

Gaza open to reporters

Israel’s supreme court has ordered its government to allow free access to Gaza for foreign correspondents.

The ruling came in response to an appeal by the Foreign Press Association. The FPA, representing reporters based in Israel and the Palestinian areas, complained when the Israeli government banned them from Gaza during the recent Israeli offensive.

The court ruling Sunday said the Israeli government must allow access to reporters whenever the borders are otherwise open. The court said it assumed the crossings would be closed “only in dire circumstances of concrete danger”. The FPA welcomed the decision as a victory for press freedom.

Barak postpones US trip

Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak on Sunday postponed by one day his departure to Washington this week because of the arrival in the region of new US envoy to the Middle East, an official said.

Barak will now head to the United States on Wednesday night “in order to meet before his departure US envoy to the Middle East George Mitchell”, a senior defence official said.

The minister will meet his counterpart US Defence Secretary Robert Gates and other senior officials in President Barack Obama’s administration, he said.

Barak will be the first top Israeli official to visit Washington since the end of Israel’s deadly 22-day offensive against the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip on January 18 and since Obama took office.