Israelis and Palestinians agree to 24-hour truce extension

Israeli and Palestinian officials said they had agreed to extend a Gaza ceasefire by another 24 hours to allow time for the sides to continue negotiations for terms of a possible agreement.

The deal was confirmed in Cairo and then Jerusalem minutes before a five-day ceasefire was due to expire. A Palestinian official close to the talks in Cairo said the extension would give both sides time “to complete the negotiations”.

An Israeli official and security source said in Jerusalem that “on Egypt’s request the ceasefire shall be extended by 24 hours to allow further negotiations.”

The two delegations attending peace talks in the Egyptian capital have been labouring for five days to reach an agreement.

Month of war

The negotiations follow a month of hostilities that killed more than 2,000 Palestinians, including hundreds of civilians, and 67 people on the Israeli side, all but three of them soldiers.

Neither report indicated how close the sides were to reaching agreement on major points of contention.

Hamas has demanded an end to the blockade on Gaza that Israel imposed after the militant group won Palestinian elections in 2006.

Israel has sought assurances that militants won’t resume their rocket attacks and cross- border raids. The European Union and the US consider Hamas a terrorist organisation.

Israeli and Palestinian officials had shown little movement from entrenched positions before the truce.

Egyptian officials had been pushing for a breakthrough on the final day of talks in Cairo, trying to craft a lasting accord to resolve disputes that have fanned repeated military showdowns. With hours to go, the outlook had appeared gloomy.

“The Israeli defence forces are gearing up for a very forceful response if the firing resumes,” prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu said in a text message. Hamas official Mussa Abu Marzuk said on his Facebook page that “the Palestinian delegation in Egypt will never surrender any of the legitimate rights of our people”.

Hamas has demanded that Israel allow the opening of a seaport and airfield in Gaza. Israeli officials said those issues can only be dealt with in a final peace agreement with the Palestinians. Israel wants Gaza demilitarised.

Egypt has proposed an 11-point plan that includes halting hostilities, easing Israel's eight-year blockade on Gaza and giving the West Bank- based Palestinian Authority a role in rebuilding the territory, according to a report in Egypt's al-Shorouk newspaper.

“We don’t need an agreement with Hamas in order to open, or not open, the crossings,” Israeli economy minister Naftali Bennett said yesterday. “I think we have to decide for ourselves what’s best for ourselves, and then do it unilaterally,” said Mr Bennett, a member of an inner security cabinet that must ratify any agreement.

Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas said in Ramallah on Saturday that the Egyptian initiative was the only viable solution to the Gaza conflict.

Fatah represented

Mr Abbas’s Fatah movement, which controls parts of the West Bank, is represented on the Palestinian negotiating team. He travelled yesterday to Qatar, where several Hamas leaders are located.

Israel withdrew ground troops from Gaza on August 5th, following a four-week offensive that it said was designed to end years of rocket fire and destroy tunnels militants built to infiltrate Israel. It accuses Hamas of deliberately putting civilians in harm’s way.

Israeli finance minister Yair Lapid yesterday renewed his call for an international conference to set a up a framework for the rehabilitation of Gaza and spur a new diplomatic initiative toward a comprehensive Israeli-Palestinian peace deal.

Bloomberg