By Nidal al-Mughrabi
GAZA, Dec 30 (Reuters) - Crawling
beneath bushes and planting bombs for practice attacks, Palestinian militants
trained in the Gaza Strip on Thursday to resume fighting when a truce with
Israel expires at year's end.
Most Palestinian armed factions agreed to halt attacks on Israel until the end of 2005 and follow a "period of calm" at the behest of President Mahmoud Abbas, but many say they want to resume the uprising fully after Dec. 31.
Gunmen training in Gaza came from Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, part of Abbas's Fatah, as well as the Popular Resistance Committees, an umbrella group that never backed the truce.
"Calm was a strategic mistake by the resistance and it will not be repeated," said Abu Sharif speaking on behalf of the two groups.
The truce helped smooth Israel's withdrawal from the Gaza Strip after 38 years of occupation and brought relative calm welcomed on both sides -- polls show a big majority of both Israelis and Palestinians want it to continue.
But Abbas made little headway when he met factions in Gaza this week to press them to renew their commitment to the truce ahead of Palestinian parliamentary elections next month.
The armed groups say that the truce cost them more than they gained because Israel continued raids and did not free all Palestinian prisoners, as they had demanded. Israel says its raids were to stop militants who were planning attacks.
Violence is already on the rise.
A Palestinian suicide bomber killed an Israeli soldier and two Palestinian bystanders in the West Bank on Thursday.
Israel shelled a new "no-go zone" in the northern Gaza Strip to stop makeshift rocket fire militants say is to retaliate for Israel actions in Gaza and the West Bank.
ISRAEL PRESSES
An Israeli official emphasised that Israel agreed a ceasefire with Abbas, not the factions, and it was up to him to ensure it continued. Israel has long pressed Abbas to crack down on militants rather than talking to them.
"They are running out of time," a senior Israeli official said. He said that if Abbas did not impose order "Palestinian society will pull itself further and further from the aspiration of a democratic state alongside Israel."
Abbas has said that confronting militants could risk civil war.
Abu Sharif said militants hoped they would soon start firing rocket salvoes from the West Bank, closer to Israel's major population centres.
"One of our strategies is to move rockets to the West Bank to meet the coming year with more violent resistance," he said.
Attacks from Gaza have been made much more difficult by the fact that most Israeli targets are beyond the range since the withdrawal of soldiers and settlers. The crude rockets are inaccurate and rarely cause casualties.
Given that many other groups are already heavily involved in attacks, the role of the powerful Islamic militant faction Hamas, which plans to contest the January elections, will be key to whether the truce is completely abandoned.
Although Hamas has said it sees no reason to continue the truce, it has not said it plans to renew attacks on Israel. Any major upsurge of violence could delay the forthcoming election in which Hamas expected to do well.
As the militants trained on Thursday, unmanned Israeli drones buzzed overhead. Palestinians believe they are used to launch missile strikes as well as for surveillance.
Wary of staying too long in the open, the gunmen scattered into surrounding farmland.