JERUSALEM, Israel – Egypt said yesterday it had brokered an understanding to halt Israeli-Palestinian violence and move toward a peace accord, hours after Hamas terrorists set off a bomb in Gaza that killed an Israeli soldier and triggered Israeli retaliation that left four Palestinian Arab terrorists dead in the most serious violence since the death of Yasser Arafat.

Egypt’s state-run news agency, MENA, reported that Cairo would call for a July peace conference in Washington to include all parties to the agreement: Israel, the Palestinian Arabs, America, and the European Union. The plan calls for an early cease-fire and contains overall principles for ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, MENA reported, adding that a dialogue among Palestinian Arab factions on a cease-fire agreement would begin in March in Cairo. The agency said the Egyptian plan, which was discussed with Prime Minister Sharon and other officials, included the withdrawal of all Israeli forces from Gaza and a plan for Egyptian border troops to be responsible for security of the Egyptian-Palestinian border and the Palestinian side of the border with Israel.

Responding to the report, Israeli officials said there was no new agreement for a cease-fire. The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that the test of a cease-fire would be in its implementation, not its declaration.

“If the Palestinians come up with a truce, that is to say they cease and desist from acts of terror, then we shall refrain from acting against them, except in the case of persons posing an immediate danger,” one official said. Palestinian Arab officials were not immediately available for comment.

The report said the agreement included steps the new Palestinian leadership would take to solidify its control of the West Bank and Gaza, as Palestinian Arabs move to elect a new leader on January 9 to replace Arafat. The Gaza part of the deal appeared to fit Prime Minister Sharon’s plan to pull Israeli soldiers and settlers out of Gaza next year. Mr. Sharon called the plan “unilateral disengagement,” but lately he has been talking of coordinating it with Egypt and the Palestinian Arabs.

Last year, Israel and the Palestinian Arabs accepted the internationally backed “road map” peace plan, which begins with a halt to violence and an end to Israeli settlement building in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, leading to a Palestinian state. The plan was stillborn when neither side carried out its initial obligations, each blaming the other.

The MENA report did not indicate whether the new agreement is different from the “road map.” Just as Egypt was talking of a new truce, however, Hamas terrorists broke three weeks of relative calm in Gaza, setting off a bomb that killed a soldier and triggered Israeli retaliation that killed four Palestinian Arab gunmen.