The New Nation - Internet Edition

AP, Damascus

The leader of Hamas says his Palestinian militant group is offering Israel a 10-year truce if it withdraws from all lands it seized in the 1967 war.

Khaled Mashaal says he made the offer to former President Carter in talks on Saturday.

Mashaal says Hamas would accept a Palestinian state limited to the lands Israel seized in 1967 - an implicit acceptance that Israel would exist alongside that state. But Mashaal says the group would never outright formally recognize Israel.

Meanwhile, Israel says efforts by former President Jimmy Carter to work out a cease-fire with Gaza's Hamas rulers failed.

Senior Defense Ministry official Amos Gilad says that Hamas presented nothing new in its demands for a truce during Carter's recent meetings with officials of the militant group.