Israel has dismissed a conditional six-month truce proposed by Hamas, saying that it was a ruse to allow the Palestinian group to recover from losses after recent clashes with the Israeli military.

Hamas offered to halt cross-border rocket attacks if Israel opened crossing points into the Gaza strip and ended military incursions.

"Hamas is biding time in order to rearm and regroup. There would be no need for Israel's defensive actions if Hamas would cease and desist from committing terrorist attacks on Israelis," David Baker, Israeli government spokesman, said on Friday.

"Israel will continue to act to protect its citizens," he told the Reuters news agency.

Mahmoud al-Zahar, the former Palestinian foreign minister, told reporters in Cairo on Thursday, said: "The movement agrees to a truce in the Gaza Strip ... fixed at six months, during which period Egypt will work to extend the truce to the West Bank."

Palestinian factions were to meet in Egypt next week to further discuss the Hamas plan.

Food aid suspension

Thursday's proposal came as the UN suspended aid deliveries to more than half a million people in Gaza after its delivery lorries ran out of fuel.

The United Nations Works and Relief Agency (UNRWA), which distributes food and essential commodities to nearly two-thirds of Gaza's population, had earlier warned it expected to run out of fuel by Thursday afternoon.

The last shipment of fuel to Gaza by Israel - the sole distributor of it to the territory - came before Palestinian fighters attacked an Israeli fuel depot on April 9.

An emergency shipment of fuel for UNRWA lorries from within Gaza was reportedly intercepted on Thursday by angry strawberry farmers who needed the supplies for irrigation and refrigeration.

"It's something that we've been warning about since early April, and that is what is so tragic," John Ging, head of UNRWA in the Gaza Strip, told Al Jazeera.

"Now we're at a standstill - we just don't have the fuel to operate the trucks.

UNRWA delivers aid to about 860,000 of Gaza's 1.4 million population, with the UN World Food Program delivering food and essential items to an additional 270,000.

Israel has besieged Gaza since fighters from Hamas's armed wing routed Palestinian Authority forces loyal to rival Fatah there in June.

Key condition

The proposal Hamas put forward on Thursday could be extended to a year-long agreement.

Al-Zahar said other Palestinian factions, including Islamic Jihad and groups based in Damascus, had preliminarily approved the offer.

Ghazi Hamad, a Hamas spokesman, told Al Jazeera that it would aim to begin improving the situation in Gaza first, and then expand to the West Bank as well.

"I think the key condition for this ceasefire is that Israel should re-open all the crossings [into Gaza], especially the Rafah crossing, in order to allow people and goods to move in and out and to lift the embargo on the Palestinian people," he said.

"Without opening the crossings, there will be no means for the ceasefire."

In exchange, Hamas would agree to stop firing rockets into southern Israel and attacking crossing points.

David Chater, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Gaza, said while Hamas and other Palestinian resistance groups in the Strip may agree to the deal, it remains to be seen what action Israel will take.

"There are many difficulties involved on the Israeli side, [such as] who exactly will control the crossing points, especially at Rafah," he said.

"There is a lot of talking still to do on the Israeli side before they accept these conditions."

PHOTO CAPTION

Senior Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar (C) speaks during a Hamas news conference in Cairo April 24, 2008.

Al-Jazeera