Gaza militants say they'll adhere to cease-fire

A Palestinian militant leader said Friday that his group is adhering to a cease-fire that stopped a barrage of rockets and air strikes between Israel and the Gaza Strip last month.     

Sheik Nafez Azzam of Islamic Jihad said Israeli reports that he had called for an ongoing struggle against Israel, despite a cease-fire, were mistaken.     

"We in the Islamic Jihad are committed to the cease-fire," Azzam told The Associated Press.     

He said a firebrand speech calling for ongoing resistance was a general political statement.     

"We are continuing the struggle and the jihad," Azzam said at a Gaza Strip rally in comments broadcast on Israeli television. "We will not be broken. We will not surrender. We will not accept the conditions Israel tries to impose." Azzam said the speech was delivered Thursday.     

Israel's Channel 2 had interpreted the speech as a signal that Islamic Jihad would continue "operations" against the Jewish state despite the cease-fire that ended a weeklong exchange of fire in early March between Israel and Gaza.     

Palestinian groups are frequently accused of sending one set of signals to radical supporters, and another set of signals to the outside world.     

Gaza's smaller militant factions in particular are caught between the need to show that their followers that they represent a radical alternative to the territory's Hamas rulers, and pressure from both Hamas and the public who do not want militant attacks to bring down another wave of Israeli retaliation.     

Azzam's statement came as Israel vowed to strike against the yet-unidentified militants who launched a rocket into the southern Israeli town of Eilat earlier Thursday.     

AP