Tag: truce
Palestinians Say Long-Term Gaza Truce Agreed With Israel

Palestinians Say Long-Term Gaza Truce Agreed With Israel

Ramallah (Palestinian Territories) (AFP) — The Palestinians have reached agreement with Israel on a “permanent” truce for Gaza, a senior official told AFP on Tuesday, in a move Hamas hailed as a “victory.”

There was no immediate comment from Israel on the claimed deal to end seven weeks of deadly conflict in and around the territory.

The Palestinian official gave no time for when a ceasefire would take effect but said president Mahmud Abbas would give further details in a speech from his West Bank headquarters at 1600 GMT.

“The contacts that have been going on have led to a permanent ceasefire, a (deal to) end the blockade, and a guarantee that Gaza’s demands and needs will be met,” the official told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The Islamist Hamas movement, de facto ruler of Gaza and party to the Abbas-led efforts to agree a truce, also said a deal had been struck with Israel.

“The negotiations ended with an agreement which embodies the resistance of our people and a victory for the resistance,” its exiled deputy leader Mussa Abu Marzuk wrote on his Facebook page.

The Palestinian official told AFP the truce deal had been finalized after 48 hours of intensive shuttle diplomacy by Azzam al-Ahmed, head of the Palestinian delegation to the protracted, on-off truce talks.

“Over the past 48 hours, he has been shuttling between the leadership of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, all the factions, and Egyptian leaders, travelling between Ramallah, Gaza, Doha overseas,” he said.

In Gaza, Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said Egypt was expected to make an official announcement on the deal.

AFP Photo/Mohammed Abed

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Gaza Truce Deadline Looms; Israel, Hamas Stick To Demands

Gaza Truce Deadline Looms; Israel, Hamas Stick To Demands

By Laura King, Batsheva Sobelman, Los Angeles Times

The latest Gaza truce is the longest so far, lasting five days, but an agreement over demands remains elusive.

Hamas appears at odds not only with Israel but other Palestinian factions in the delegation to the Cairo talks.

As the clock ticked down on yet another Gaza cease-fire, Egyptian mediators on Monday prodded Israel and the Palestinians to take steps to avert another outbreak of hostilities, but neither side showed public signs of softening its demands.

The latest truce — the longest so far, lasting five days — was due to expire at midnight local time. Israel warned the militant group Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, against any resumption of rocket fire, saying such a move would draw a forceful response.

Israel has expressed willingness to extend the cease-fire and continue indirect talks if the calm held. Israel’s intelligence minister, Yuval Steinitz, told Israel radio on Monday that prospects for an accord were “not spectacular, to say the least.” But he added that “one must wait … sometimes there are surprises.”

Hamas, for its part, appeared to find itself at odds not only with Israel but with other Palestinian factions in the delegation to the Cairo talks, taking a harder line than the government of President Mahmoud Abbas on several points, including how and when an Egyptian and Israeli blockade of the coastal territory will be eased.

A monthlong war between the two sides, which tapered off with a series of cease-fires and the withdrawal of Israeli ground forces earlier this month, killed more than 2,000 Palestinians, most of them believed to be civilians, and 67 on the Israeli side, all but three of them soldiers.

When the last truce expired late Wednesday, there was argument almost up to the moment of the deadline. And even as the extension was announced, there was a brief flare-up of fighting — rockets fired from Gaza and retaliatory airstrikes by Israel. Hamas, which has allied fighters it says it does not directly control, denied its forces had fired the rockets.

Hamas came under pressure over the weekend to moderate its position in talks between Saeb Erekat, representing Abbas, and Khaled Meshaal, who lives in exile in Qatar and heads Hamas’ political bureau. Israel’s Haaretz daily newspaper said Abbas’ government is trying to get Hamas to accept an Egyptian-authored formula for an accord even if it falls short of Hamas’ demands.

But after the extreme scope of death and devastation in Gaza, Hamas wants to produce landmark results, such as a commitment for the reopening Gaza’s seaport and airport. Israel insists that stringent security provisions would have to be in place to prevent Hamas from exploiting an easing of the blockade in order to rearm.

Delays in reaching an accord have been holding up the start of full-scale efforts to start reconstruction of Gaza, where the infrastructure has been battered and thousands of homes and businesses destroyed. Norway announced that its government and Egypt would cohost a donor conference to kick off what is likely to be a massive and lengthy rebuilding effort.

As the deadline neared, Monday brought a reminder of the events that helped touch off the Gaza conflict. The Israeli military said Monday that troops had demolished the West Bank homes of two suspects in the kidnapping and killing of three Israeli teens, and blocked off a third. After the teens’ bodies were found, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu blamed Hamas and authorized a wave of arrests of Hamas suspects in the West Bank.

Special correspondent Sobelman reported from Jerusalem.

AFP Photo/Thomas Coex

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Gaza Truce Holds As U.S. Ties With Israel Show Strain

Gaza Truce Holds As U.S. Ties With Israel Show Strain

By Steve Weizman

Gaza City (Palestinian Territories) (AFP) — A fragile ceasefire around Gaza held for a second day Friday as Israel’s relations with its U.S. ally showed new signs of strain with tough talks looming on a more lasting peace.

Washington denied a report that the White House was tightening the reins on the routine delivery of military aid to Israel over concerns about the proportionality of its military action in Gaza.

But the State Department acknowledged that arms shipments were being kept under review in the face of a conflict that has killed 1,962 Palestinians and 67 people on the Israeli side since July 8.

Egyptian mediators won a new five-day ceasefire late Wednesday to give Israeli and Palestinian negotiators more time to thrash out a longer-term truce.

The ceasefire got off to a rocky start in its first few hours but Israeli officials said it had held into a second day Friday.

The military said there was no Palestinian rocket fire overnight and that it had carried out no air strikes.

“There was nothing,” a spokeswoman told AFP.

Negotiations are expected to resume in Cairo on Saturday evening, as Palestinian and Israeli negotiators consult with their political leaderships about the parameters for an eventual long-term truce.

Gaza’s Islamist de facto rulers Hamas, who have representation on the Palestinian negotiating team, insist there can be no return to peace without a lifting of Israel’s eight-year blockade of the beleaguered coastal enclave.

But Israel’s right-wing government — under pressure from constituents from Gaza border towns that have endured persistent rocket fire from the territory — is refusing to countenance any major reconstruction effort without full demilitarization.

– ‘Live in peace’ –

Thousands of Israelis joined by the mayor of the border town of Sderot, Alon Davidi, rallied in Tel Aviv late Thursday against any outcome that does not provide them with lasting security.

“This is a universal principle. We want to live in peace,” Davidi, a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party, told the crowd.

The army says Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip have launched more than 3,500 rockets since July 8. More than 2,790 have slammed into Israel and around 600 have been shot down.

Netanyahu’s security cabinet met for a second day Friday to hammer out a negotiating position for the next round of talks, media said.

There was no formal statement from the secretive body.

– Tension with United States –

Israel secured supplies of ammunition from the Pentagon last month without the approval of the White House or the State Department, The Wall Street Journal reported.

President Barack Obama’s administration, caught off guard as it tried to restrain Israel’s campaign in Gaza, has since tightened controls on arms shipments to Israel, the newspaper said, quoting U.S. and Israeli officials.

The newspaper said Obama and Netanyahu had a particularly tense phone call on Wednesday and that the Israeli leader wanted U.S. security assurances in return for a long-term deal with Hamas.

The chairman of the Israeli parliament’s foreign affairs committee, Likud MP Zeev Elkin, said that spats between close friends were normal and the underlying Israel-U.S. relationship remained sound.

“Differences of opinion are legitimate and sometimes necessary,” he told public radio.

But Alon Pinkas, Israel’s former consul-general in New York, told the radio that Elkin and others who saw no danger signals were like “people on the Titanic saying how lovely the buffet is.”

The Wall Street Journal said Netanyahu had essentially “pushed the administration aside,” reducing U.S. officials to bystanders instead of their usual role as mediators.

State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf acknowledged that the administration was looking carefully at arms shipments to Israel but said the process was “by no means unusual.”

“Given the crisis in Gaza, it’s natural that agencies take additional care to review deliveries,” she told reporters.

“This is not routine,” Pinkas said. “Even when they do check, it’s done quietly and not announced; it doesn’t appear in the Wall Street Journal.”

“Relations with the U.S. are a strategic asset that must not be harmed,” Friday’s Maariv daily quoted Finance Minister Yair Lapid as saying.

“This is a worrying trend and we cannot let it continue.”

Relations between Washington and Israel were already strained by the collapse of U.S.-brokered peace talks earlier this year that the Obama administration had made a top foreign policy priority.

Obama has defended Israel’s use of force against rockets fired by Hamas but has repeatedly voiced concern over the civilian death toll in Gaza.

The United Nations says that 72 percent of the Palestinian dead have been civilians.

AFP Photo/Gali Tibbon

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Gaza Truce Holds As The Two Sides Talk In Cairo

Gaza Truce Holds As The Two Sides Talk In Cairo

By Laura King, Batsheva Sobelman, Los Angeles Times

After a shaky start, a new temporary truce in the Gaza Strip appeared to be holding Thursday.

The two sides, which have been holding indirect talks in Cairo, agreed late Wednesday to a five-day cease-fire, according to Palestinian negotiators and the Egyptian government, which is mediating the talks.

If the truce holds for its full duration, until Monday night, it would be the longest cessation of hostilities since fighting between Israel and Palestinian militants erupted on July 8. Israel withdrew its ground forces from Gaza last week, and the conflict has since tapered off, with occasional flare-ups.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who spoke Wednesday by telephone with President Obama, was convening his security Cabinet on Thursday to discuss the status of the ongoing talks. Israel wants Hamas, the militant group that controls Gaza, to disarm, and Hamas is demanding a lifting of the blockade of the coastal territory and a prisoner release.

As the previous cease-fire was winding down and the new truce taking hold, Israel was hit late Wednesday and early Thursday by a volley of missiles and responded with a series of retaliatory airstrikes. No new casualties were reported on either side.

In Gaza, many people were taking advantage of the relative calm to resume some semblance of normal life. Traffic was flowing and shops were open, although huge areas of devastation remain.

The conflict has killed more than 1,900 Palestinians in Gaza, most of them civilians, according to the United Nations and human rights groups. Sixty-four Israeli soldiers have died, along with three civilians on the Israeli side.

AFP Photo/Jack Guez

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