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RAMALLAH, West Bank (AFP) — Security forces of the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas in Gaza detained several Islamic Jihad activists and made them sign an agreement not to fire rockets at Israel, a Jihad leader said on Monday.

"At least 10 activists from the Al-Quds Brigades were arrested by the Hamas interior security," he said in reference to the armed wing of the Islamic Jihad.

"They were tortured and interrogated about the identities of those who fire rockets," he told AFP by telephone under condition of anonymity.

"Before they were released they had to sign an agreement not to fire rockets at the occupied territory," he said in reference to Israel whose existence both Hamas and its smaller Islamist rivals in Jihad oppose.

A Hamas police spokesman in Gaza City, Islam Shahwan, declined to comment on the report.

Hamas, which seized control of the Gaza Strip in June 2007, is involved in Egyptian-mediated negotiations with Israel to try to consolidate a January 18 truce which ended a 22-day Israeli military offensive in Gaza.

The stated aim of the offensive, which killed more than 1,300 people, almost all Palestinians, was to significantly reduce the number of rockets fired at southern Israel, many of them by Islamic Jihad.