Special report: Palestine-Israel Relations

    GAZA, March 10 (Xinhua) -- Palestinian Islamic Hamas movement on Monday denied any agreement on calmness between armed groups and Israel, saying Gaza calmness doesn't reflect ceasefire understanding.

    "The mounting debate on calmness doesn't mean there is a deal or understanding," Hamas' spokesman Ayman Taha told reporters.

    "Our stance is clear: the calmness must be mutual and coincident with the lifting of the siege" on the Hamas-ruled Gaza, Taha said.

    Taha was commenting on reports that Israeli army had received orders to scale down the level of its operations which mostly come in response to the rockets that the Palestinian militants fire from Gaza.

    He said the calmness that prevails now goes back "to Hamas' well because it is the side that allocates the time and the place of the battle", stressing that the calmness was part of "field tactics away from any political agreement.

    Hamas also reiterated that lifting the blockade, which Israel imposed on Gaza since Hamas took over the territory in June last year, became a basic condition for accepting a ceasefire.

    "The siege is the ugliest form of aggression so the resistance is going on until all forms of violence get over," Taha said.