Global Networks: West Bank

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10:43 am

UN alarmed by Israeli, Palestinian 'downward spiral'

(ATimes) - U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is alarmed that Israelis and Palestinians are engaged in a downward spiral of actions and counter actions and calls on both sides not to exacerbate existing divisions, a senior U.N. official said on Thursday.

Israel is withholding critical tax revenue and seeking ways to prosecute Palestinian leaders for war crimes in retaliation for Palestinian moves to join the International Criminal Court (ICC).

"We call on Israel to immediately resume the transfer of tax revenues," U.N. deputy political affairs chief Jens Anders Toyberg-Frandzen told the Security Council. "The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is now entering unchartered territory, which, lamentably, seems to have dashed any immediate hope for a return to peace talks."

The council's monthly meeting on the Middle East was the first on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict since the failure last month of a Palestinian statehood bid at the United Nations Security Council.

Chief Palestinian delegate Riyad Mansour said his government was undeterred.

"In spite of this setback, we will continue to approach the Security Council," he said without elaborating. The Palestinians will become full ICC members on April 1.

Mansour called the withholding of Palestinian tax revenues a "blatant act of reprisal and theft of Palestinian funds" and condemned Israel's "rabid settlement colonization."

Israel has condemned Palestinian moves, with Ambassador Ron Prosor accusing Palestinians of "running away from negotiations" and obstructing the peace process.

The ICC move paves the way for the court to take jurisdiction over alleged crimes committed in Palestinian lands and investigate the conduct of Israeli and Palestinian leaders. Neither Israel nor the United States is an ICC member.

The United States has suggested some $400 million in aid could now be in jeopardy.

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, said the United States, an Israel ally, had been reaching out to both parties to try to reduce tensions and find a path forward.

"We continue to oppose unilateral actions by both sides that we view as detrimental to the cause of peace," Power told the Security Council, describing Palestinian moves to join the ICC and other treaties as "counter-productive."

Palestinians seek a state in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem - lands Israel captured in the 1967 War.

Momentum has built since President Mahmoud Abbas succeeded in a bid for de facto recognition of Palestinian statehood at the U.N. General Assembly in 2012, making Palestinians eligible for the ICC.

(Reporting by Michelle Nichols and Louis Charbonneau; editing by Gunna Dickson)(GA, Reuters, Asia Times)

1:23 am

Israel strikes Gaza after militants resume rocket fire

#GNN - Israel launched air #strikes across the #Gaza Strip on Friday in response to Palestinian rockets after Egyptian-mediated talks failed to extend a 72-hour truce in a month-old war.

Egypt later called for a resumption of the ceasefire, saying only a few points remained to be agreed. Palestinian factions said they would meet Egyptian mediators later in the day but there was no sign of any imminent deal.

An Israeli government official said Israel would not negotiate with Palestinians while militants continued to unleash missiles.

As warning sirens sounded in southern Israel, the military said "Gaza terrorists" had fired at least 57 rockets on Friday and the "Iron Dome" interceptor system had been used against some of them.

Islamic Jihad and the Popular Resistance Committees claimed responsibility for the salvoes from the Hamas-dominated enclave.

Accusing Hamas of breaking the ceasefire, Israel said several of the rockets had been launched about four hours before the truce was due to end at 8 a.m. (0500 GMT). Heavier barrages followed shortly after the ceasefire period expired.

By resuming the attacks, Gaza militants appeared to be trying to put pressure on Israel, making clear they were ready to fight on to end a blockade of the coastal territory that both Israel and neighbouring Egypt have imposed.

In the first casualties since hostilities resumed on Friday, Palestinian medical officials said a 10-year-old boy was killed in an Israeli strike near a mosque in Gaza City. An Islamic Jihad militant and three other Palestinians were killed in attacks from the air in the southern Gaza Strip.

In Israel, police said two people were injured by mortar fire from Gaza.

Israel's armed forces said they had responded to the cross-border attacks by targeting 51 "terror sites" across the Gaza Strip, including rocket launchers and military compounds and headquarters, and would continue to strike Hamas and its infrastructure and operatives.

Israeli Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's security cabinet, said on Channel 2 television that Gaza militants "have to get hit in return, and not in the same proportion, but to a greater degree".

Heavy civilian casualties and destruction during Israel's campaign against militants in packed residential areas of the Gaza Strip have raised international alarm over the past month, but efforts to prolong a ceasefire at talks in Cairo failed.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in a statement he was deeply disappointed an extension of the ceasefire could not be agreed, and he condemned the renewed rocket fire on Israel.

"The Secretary-General firmly calls on the parties not to resort to further military action that can only exacerbate the already appalling humanitarian situation in Gaza," it said.

GO-BETWEENS
Israel had earlier said it was ready to agree to an extension as Egyptian go-betweens pursued negotiations with Israeli and Palestinian delegates.

Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said Israel had rejected most Palestinian demands. "However, we did not close the door and will continue with the negotiations," he said.

His comments came in response to a statement from the Egyptian foreign ministry, which indirectly blamed the Palestinians for refusing to end the truce. Egypt said an agreement had been reached on the major issues of concern to the Palestinian people and only a few sticking points remained.

The Palestinians had wanted Israel to agree in principle to demands which include lifting the blockade of the Gaza Strip, the release of prisoners and the opening of a sea port, but this had been rebuffed, Abu Zuhri said.

Israel has shown little interest in easing its naval blockade of Gaza and controls on overland traffic and airspace, suspecting Hamas could restock with weapons from abroad.

Livni said the issue of a sea port should be part of wider final-status peace negotiations with the Palestinians and that Hamas, in the current indirect talks mediated by Egypt, should not be rewarded for "using force against Israeli citizens."

In Cairo, the foreign ministry called on both sides "to return immediately to the ceasefire and exploit the opportunity available to resume negotiations on the very limited sticking points that remain in the fastest possible time".

In Gaza, some families who had returned to their homes in the northern town of Beit Hanoun during the ceasefire gathered their belongings and headed back to the United Nations shelters where they had sought refuge over the past few weeks.

Beit Hanoun resident Yamen Mahmoud, a 35-year-old father of four, said: "Today I am fleeing again. I am not against resistance but we need to know what to do. Is it war or peace?"

Gaza officials say the war has killed 1,880 Palestinians, most of them civilians. Hamas said on Thursday it had executed an unspecified number of Palestinians as Israeli spies.

Israel says 64 of its soldiers and three civilians have died in the fighting that began on July 8, after a surge in Palestinian rocket salvoes into Israel.

It expanded its air and naval bombardment of the Gaza Strip into a ground offensive on July 17, and pulled its infantry and armour out of the enclave on Tuesday after saying it had destroyed more than 30 infiltration tunnels dug by militants.

Hamas's refusal to extend the ceasefire could further alienate Egypt, whose government has been hostile to the group and which ultimately controls Gaza's main gateway to the world, the Rafah border crossing.

A source at Cairo airport said the Israeli delegation left shortly before the truce expired.

"Despite being in Cairo for a week to negotiate, we have not heard Israel’s view on this demand or that demand, we’ve only heard it through the media. I say this is wrong," senior Fatah leader Azzam al-Ahmed, who heads the Palestinian negotiating team, told reporters in a hotel in the Egyptian capital.

"We present demands that have to do with stopping the war. We hope these demands are met. It would pave the way for a political process that would end the violence and the war and end the bloodshed," he said.

In the occupied West Bank on Friday, a 20-year-old Palestinian was shot dead during an anti-Israeli protest outside the settlement of Psagot, the Palestinian ambulance service said. A military spokeswoman said troops first used riot control methods but then opened fire, "confirming a hit", after stone-throwing protesters reached the settlement's fence.

(GNN)(Reuters)(AIP)(Additional reporting by Stephen Kalin and Maggie Fick in Cairo, Allyn Fisher-Ilan and Ori Lewis in Jerusalem, Ali Sawafta in Ramallah and Michelle Nichols in New York; Writing by Jeffrey Heller in Jerusalem; Editing by Andrew Roche)

9:11 pm

U.S.-Israeli tensions rise as hostilities in #Gaza subside

#GNN - #Israel sees no need for another Gaza ceasefire, an Israeli official was quoted as saying on Monday, as tensions between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government and Washington flared over U.S. mediation to end the almost three-week-old war.

Fighting had subsided over the weekend, with the battered Palestinian enclave's dominant Hamas Islamists endorsing a U.N. call for a 24-hour halt ahead of Monday's Eid al-Fitr festival.

Yet Israel balked, having abandoned its own offer to extend a 12-hour truce from Saturday as Palestinian rocket launches persisted. Netanyahu's security cabinet met into the early hours of Monday to debate proposals including for an escalation of the Gaza offensive in which almost 1,100 people have died.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry visited the region last week to try to stem the bloodshed, his contacts with Hamas - which Washington formally shuns - facilitated by Egypt, Turkey, Qatar and Western-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

Israel wants Egypt, which also borders the Gaza Strip and views Hamas as a security threat, to take the lead in curbing the Palestinian Islamists. It worries about Doha and Ankara championing Hamas demands to open up the blockaded territory.

A flurry of media leaks by unnamed Israeli officials damning a draft agreement attributed to Kerry as too accommodating of Hamas was challenged by a U.S. official who, also anonymously, told reporters the top diplomat's efforts had been mischaracterized.

But U.S. President Barack Obama, phoning Netanyahu on Sunday, put pressure on Israel to hold fire unconditionally and appeared to link its core demand for Hamas to be stripped of cross-border rockets and infiltration tunnels to a peace accord with the Palestinians that is nowhere on the diplomatic horizon.

"The President stressed the U.S. view that, ultimately, any lasting solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict must ensure the disarmament of terrorist groups and the demilitarization of Gaza," the White House said.

It added that while Obama wanted any truce to be along the lines of an Egyptian deal that ended the last Gaza war, in November 2012, the United States also supported "regional and international coordination to end hostilities".

Israel did not immediately respond nor publish what, if anything, was decided at the overnight security cabinet session.

But Israel Radio quoted an unidentified government official as saying: "There is no need for any more ceasefires. Let Hamas stop firing first."

ISRAEL LINKS GAZA RELIEF TO DISARMING HAMAS
That signaled preference for a de facto mutual halt to fighting rather than any agreement preserving Hamas's arsenals and shoring up its status by improving Gaza's crippled economy.

Two decades of Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations have made little progress and been frequently interrupted, most recently in April when Netanyahu called off talks overseen by Kerry in response to Abbas's surprise power-share with Hamas.

Speaking earlier on Sunday, Netanyahu sounded open to easing conditions for the Gaza Strip's 1.8 million Palestinians but said this must be "intertwined" with disarming Hamas.

"I think you can't get social and economic relief for the people of Gaza without having an assured demilitarization," he told CNN.

Israeli air, sea and ground attacks have killed some 1,031 Palestinians, mainly civilians and including many children, Gaza officials say. Israel says 43 of its soldiers have died, along with three civilians killed by rocket and mortar fire from Gaza.

A poll published by Israel's Channel 10 television on Sunday said some 87 percent of respondents wanted Israel to continue the operation until Hamas was toppled. Another poll, published in the Jerusalem Post newspaper, found that 86.5 percent of Israel's majority Jews opposed calling a truce while rocket fire continued and Gaza retained any of the cross-border tunnels.

Israel says the Palestinians have lost around half of their rockets during the fighting - an account disputed by Hamas - and that army engineers have located and destroyed most of the tunnels from the territory. Those excavations will continue under any short-term truce, Israel says.

The main U.N. agency in Gaza, UNRWA, said 167,269 displaced Palestinians have taken shelter in its schools and buildings, following repeated calls by Israel for civilians to evacuate whole neighborhoods ahead of military operations.

But residents of villages near the southern town of Khan Younis on Sunday attacked offices of the International Committee of the Red Cross, torching furniture and causing damage. They said the organization had not done enough to help them.

During the lull in fighting inside Gaza on Sunday, residents flooded into the streets to discover scenes of massive destruction in some areas, including Beit Hanoun in the north and Shejaia in the east.

An Israeli official said the army hoped the widespread desolation would persuade Gazans to put pressure on Hamas to stop the fighting for fear of yet more devastation.

The Gaza turmoil has stoked tensions amongst Palestinians in mainly Arab East Jerusalem and in the occupied West Bank, which Abbas governs in uneasy coordination with the Israelis.

Medics said eight Palestinians were killed on Friday in incidents near the West Bank cities of Nablus and Hebron - the sort of death toll reminiscent of previous anti-Israel revolts.

(GNN,Reuters,AIP)(Writing by Dan Williams; Editing by Paul Simao)

8:51 pm

West Bank glows with anger over Gaza destruction

#GNN - While the #Gaza Strip burns, the occupied West #Bank is smoldering, with violent clashes between Palestinians and Israeli forces raising the specter of a new popular uprising after years of relative calm.

In just a three-day period late last week, 10 Palestinians died and some 600 wounded during a spate of angry protests against the prolonged military offensive in nearby Gaza.

On Sunday, Israeli police said they foiled a potentially deadly attack when they stopped a car laden with explosives as its driver tried to reach Israel via a West Bank checkpoint, while riots broke out once more overnight in East Jerusalem.

In normal times, such friction would be dominating local headlines, but with all eyes fixed instead on Gaza, where more than 1,050 Palestinians have died so far in 20 days of fighting, the growing tension has been largely overlooked.

If the Gaza bloodshed continues for much longer, Palestinians say, it might prove impossible for Israel or Western-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to keep the lid on growing rage in the West Bank.

"It's premature to describe what's happening as an uprising, (however) the Palestinians have overcome their fear and are pushing toward the Israeli checkpoints," said Hani al-Masri, a political analyst in Ramallah, the de-facto Palestinian capital which lies just to the north of Jerusalem.

More than 10,000 Palestinians marched on the Qalandia checkpoint outside Ramallah on Thursday night, the largest such rally in years, with whole families joining the demonstration.

"To Jerusalem we go, martyrs in the millions!" the crowds chanted. "Our souls and our blood we sacrifice for you, Gaza!"

In the ensuing confrontations, youths hurled stones and aimed screeching fireworks at Israeli soldiers, who shot back with rubber and live bullets, killing a 17-year old and injuring dozens, said Palestinian medics who treated the wounded.

SHATTERED HOPES
Israel captured East Jerusalem, Gaza and the West Bank in a 1967 war. It has annexed East Jerusalem, pulled its settlers and soldiers from Gaza in 2005 and offered limited self rule to Palestinians in the West Bank while rapidly expanding its network of Jewish settlements in the kidney-shaped territory.

Palestinians want an independent state in Gaza and the West Bank, with East Jerusalem as their capital.

Repeated U.S.-led negotiations over the past 20 years have failed to broker a permanent deal. The most recent round of direct talks collapsed in April, with Palestinians livid over more settlement building and Israelis furious that Abbas had signed a unity pact with the Hamas Islamists in Gaza.

The lack of any imminent solution to the decades-old Middle East conflict, coupled with a worsening economic outlook for Abbas's aid-dependent Palestinian Authority, have fueled the anger in a West Bank already on edge even before Gaza exploded.

In June, following the murder of three Jewish teenagers, Israeli forces arrested hundreds of people across the territory in its search for suspects. Israel blamed Hamas, but the group neither denied nor acknowledged responsibility for the killings.

"The Intifada of the people has begun," said Walid Saqr, a taxi driver in his 50s, using the Arabic term for uprising.

"They've given us no other choice with the poverty and unemployment around us. The Intifada is coming, and there's no place for those who say 'give it a little time, things might get better'. Man, since we were all little, nothing has changed!"

Palestinians have already staged two Intifadas.

The first ran from 1987 to 1993 and led the way to the Oslo peace accords between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), ushering in a period of hope and expectation that barely outlived the decade.

The Second Intifada broke out in 2000 after the failure of a U.S.-led drive to negotiate a final peace settlement. Over the following seven years, more than 1,000 Israelis died, half of them in suicide attacks mostly against civilians, and more than 4,500 Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces.

The Palestinians lost ground in the court of world opinion as a result and their appetite for resistance was curtailed.

Abbas himself has vowed never to let another uprising take hold, saying it would spell fresh ruin for his people, but this latest Gaza violence has left him in a vulnerable position.

A long-time foe of Hamas, which chased his forces out of Gaza in a brief civil war in 2007, Abbas has nonetheless clearly backed the Islamist militants in this latest struggle and has adopted as his own their demands for a permanent ceasefire.

His inner circle have also been virulent in their verbal attacks on Israel. "Gaza is the steadfast shield in the face of the fascism, racism and terrorism of (Israel)," said senior PLO official and Abbas confidant Yasser Abed Rabbo.

UNCOMPROMISING FORCE
Abbas's own security forces, lambasted by many Palestinians for cooperating with the Israeli army in the West Bank, have taken the unusual step of letting protesters march on Israeli checkpoints and not trying to stop them, as they previously did.

"The current leadership is trying to ride this wave and embrace the call for demonstrations," said analyst Masri.

Israel in turn appears to be responding to the protests with an uncompromising show of force, using a significant amount of live fire, perhaps hoping to scare people off the streets.

The army says it only uses live ammunition when the life of its soldiers is in danger, adding that it was investigating the recent West Bank killings, including those of three teenagers.

Israeli security forces are also facing nightly protests in mainly Arab districts of East Jerusalem, rocket-strewn streets bearing witness to the violence when dawn comes.

A Palestinian teenager was abducted from the streets of Jerusalem earlier this month and burnt alive, in an apparent revenge attack for the killing of the Jewish teens. Three Israelis have been arrested and are awaiting trial.

Two Palestinians were badly beaten in the city overnight on Sunday in a suspected "nationalist" attack by Jewish youths.

Despite the undoubted turbulence, Palestinians said the recent confrontations were largely unplanned and spontaneous, with none of the major political groups in the West Bank looking to organize a structured campaign against Israel.

"The Palestinian Authority has made a political decision to allow people to reach the points of friction with the occupation army, but these confrontations don't have any staying power," said Ali Saleh, a 30-year old public sector worker in Ramallah.

"It's linked to the situation in Gaza, and if that quietens down, it will get calm here too."

(GNN, Reuters, AIP)(Writing by Crispian Balmer; Editing by Gareth Jones)

11:26 pm

Twelve-hour ceasefire takes effect between #Israel, #Gaza #militants

#GNN - A 12-hour humanitarian truce went into effect on Saturday after Israel and Palestinian militant groups in the Gaza Strip agreed to a U.N. request for a pause in fighting and efforts proceeded to secure a long-term ceasefire moved ahead.

The Gaza Health Ministry said 18 members of a single family were killed by Israeli tank shelling in the southern Gaza Strip shortly before the truce took effect at 8 a.m. (1 a.m. EDT). An Israeli military spokeswoman said she was checking the report.

Israel's military said it would hold fire for 12 hours, but would press on with its search for tunnels used by militants. A spokesman for the Islamist group Hamas, which dominates Gaza, said all Palestinian factions would abide by the brief truce.

Hundreds of Palestinians poured into the streets in the minutes after the truce took force, some headed on foot to their homes to inspect damage from the Israeli assaults and many lined up outside banks to withdraw cash and stock up on supplies.

Fighting had continued overnight as U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, on a visit to the region, spearheaded international efforts to end 19 days of conflict in which 883 Palestinians, many of them civilians, have been killed.

Gaza officials said five people were killed in Israeli air strikes in the night and militants fired a barrage of rockets out of Gaza, triggering sirens across much of southern and central Israel. No injuries were reported, with the Iron Dome interceptor system shooting down some of the projectiles.

Gaza Health Ministry spokesman Ashraf Al-Qidra said that 18 members of the Al-Najar family killed had been trapped inside their house in Khuzaa village east of Khan Younis since Thursday and that many others were wounded in Israeli tank shelling.

Israel said that two more of its soldiers were killed in Gaza, bringing the army death toll to 37, as troops battled militants in the north, east and south of Gaza - a tiny Mediterranean enclave that is home to 1.8 million Palestinians.

It also announced that a soldier unaccounted for after an ambush in Gaza six days ago was definitely dead, although his body had not been recovered. Hamas said on Sunday it had captured the man but did not release a photograph of him.

Three civilians have also been killed in Israel by rockets from Gaza - the kind of attack that surged last month amid Hamas's anger at a crackdown on its activists in the West Bank, prompting the July 8 launch of the Israeli offensive.

TRUCE NEGOTIATIONS
Diplomats will pursue efforts to secure a ceasefire in Paris on Saturday, with France hosting officials from the United States, Britain, Germany, Italy, the European Union, Turkey and Qatar, a French diplomatic source said.

Israel on Friday rejected international proposals for an extended ceasefire, a government source said, but Kerry, speaking in Cairo, said no formal proposals had yet been put forward.

The top U.S. diplomat said there were still disagreements on the terminology, but he was confident there was a framework that would ultimately succeed and that "serious progress" had been made, although there was more work to do.

Hamas wants an end to an Israeli-Egyptian blockade of Gaza before agreeing to halt hostilities. Israeli officials said any ceasefire must allow the military to carry on hunting down Hamas's tunnel network that criss-crosses the Gaza border.

Israel says some of the tunnels reach into Israel and are meant to carry out attack on Israelis. Other underground passages serve as weapon caches and serve as Hamas bunkers.

The Gaza turmoil has stoked tensions in east Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank, some of which U.S.-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas governs in uneasy coordination with Israel.

Medics said eight Palestinians were killed in incidents near the cities of Nablus and Hebron on Friday, including one shooting that witnesses blamed on an apparent Jewish settler.

On Thursday night, 10,000 demonstrators marched in solidarity with Gaza near the Palestinian administrative capital Ramallah - a scale recalling mass revolts of the past.

Protesters surged against an Israeli army checkpoint, throwing rocks and Molotov cocktails, and Palestinian medics said one was shot dead and 200 wounded when troops opened fire.

Abbas's Palestine Liberation Organization called for more demonstrations in the West Bank and said it was at the same time working to secure a ceasefire deal.

(GNN)(AIP)(Reuters)(Editing by Ken Wills and Ron Popeski)

6:51 pm

Israel pounds #Gaza despite #international peace efforts

#GNN - #Israel #pounded #targets across the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, saying no ceasefire was near as top U.S. and United Nations diplomats pursued talks on halting the fighting that has claimed more than 600 lives.

Gaza offensive enters third week by GNN
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry held discussions in neighbouring Egypt, while U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon met Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Tel Aviv and later with the Palestinian prime minister in the occupied West Bank.

However, there was no let-up in the fighting around Gaza, with plumes of black smoke spiralling into the sky, and Israeli shells raining down on the coastal Palestinian enclave.

Dealing a blow to Israel's economy already reeling from a spate of tourism cancellations, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) took the rare step of banning U.S. carriers from flying to or from Ben-Gurion International Airport for at least 24 hours after a rocket fired from Gaza struck near the airport's fringes, injuring two people.

European airlines including Germany's Lufthansa, Air-France, Dutch airline KLM, Norwegian Air SAS and Turkish Airlines, said they were halting flights there too. Israel's flagship carrier El Al continued flights as usual.

Israel launched its offensive on July 8 to halt missile salvoes out of the Gaza Strip by Hamas, the dominant group in the coastal territory, which was angered by a crackdown on its supporters in the occupied West Bank and suffering economic hardship because of an Israeli-Egyptian blockade.

"A ceasefire is not near," said Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, viewed as the most dovish member of Netanyahu's inner security cabinet. "I see no light at the end of the tunnel," she told Israel's Army Radio.

EGYPTIAN INITIATIVE
Dispatched by U.S. President Barack Obama to the region to seek a ceasefire, Kerry met on Tuesday with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Foreign Minister Sameh Shukri. "There is a framework ... to end the violence and that framework is the Egyptian initiative," Kerry said at a news conference with Shukri.

"For the sake of thousands of innocent families whose lives have been shaken and destroyed by this conflict, on all sides, we hope we can get there as soon as possible," he said.

"Hamas has a fundamental choice to make and it is a choice that will have a profound impact for the people of Gaza."

Egypt was key to securing an end to a previous bout of Gaza fighting in 2012, but the country's new leadership is openly hostile to Hamas. For its part, Hamas has already rejected Egypt's proposal this time around as insufficient."We hope (Kerry's) visit will result in a ceasefire that provides the necessary security for the Palestinian people and that we can commence to address the medium and long-term issues related to Gaza," Shukri said.

With the conflict entering its third week, the Palestinian death toll rose to 621, including nearly 100 children and many other civilians, Gaza health officials said.

The latest strikes killed a six-month-old infant, a 62-year-old man and three other men riding on motorcycles in southern Gaza, Palestinian health officials said. The Israeli military said it had killed at least 183 militants.

Israel's casualties also mounted as the military announced the deaths of two more soldiers. That brought the number of army fatalities to 27, almost three times as many as were killed in the last ground invasion of Gaza in a 2008-2009 war.

Two Israeli civilians have also been killed by Palestinian rocket fire into Israel.

HUMANITARIAN TRUCE
Addressing reporters with Netanyahu at his side, U.N. chief Ban said: "My message to Israelis and Palestinians is the same: Stop fighting. Start talking. And take on the root causes of the conflict, so we are not back to the same situation in another six months or a year."

Kerry has said the United States would provide $47 million in humanitarian aid for the Gaza Strip. He plans to stay in Cairo until Wednesday morning but has no set departure date from the region.

An Egyptian official who attended some of Kerry's meetings said Ban was working toward reaching a humanitarian truce, perhaps lasting for several days, to get aid into the territory.

"The sensitivities between Egypt and Hamas are what is halting a final inclusive ceasefire deal," the official said.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's Western-backed Fatah movement also proposed a formula for ending the fighting, calling for an immediate ceasefire followed by five days of negotiations, Palestinian official Azzam al-Ahmed said in Cairo.

Abbas said Palestinian "anger is great" against the Israeli offensive and pledged in his remarks from Ramallah to "go everywhere to stop the aggression and chase down all those who committed crimes against our people."

With Israeli shells and bombs hitting Gaza day and night, thousands of people have fled districts close to the border. The main U.N. agency in Gaza, UNRWA, said almost 102,000 people had taken shelter in 69 of its schools.

UNRWA said it found rockets hidden in a vacant Gaza school near two buildings housing refugees, in the second such instance of militants accused of storing weaponry in a school during the latest offensive.

An UNRWA statement said staff were removed from the building where the rockets were found adding that it "strongly and unequivocally condemns the group or groups responsible".

ISRAEL IN NO HURRY
Israel has signalled it is in no hurry to achieve a truce before reaching its goal of crippling Hamas's militant infrastructure, including rocket arsenals and networks of tunnels threatening Israelis living along the Gaza frontier.

Lieutenant Colonel Peter Lerner, a military spokesman, said Israel had eliminated about half of the tunnels Hamas had dug with the aim of infiltrating into Israel, and destroyed 30 to 40 percent of militants' rocket arsenals in Gaza.

Israel said Gaza militants had fired 2,160 rockets at Israel since the start of the offensive and about a fifth of them had been intercepted by the Iron Dome. Eighty-seven rockets were fired at Israel on Tuesday and 18 of them intercepted.

Hamas has said it will not cease hostilities until its demands are met, including that Israel and Egypt lift their blockade of Gaza and its 1.8 million people, and that Israel release several hundred Palestinians detained during a search last month for three Jewish teenagers later found dead. Israel blamed the killings on Hamas, and their deaths, along with the revenge slaying of a Palestinian teen, were factors in a flare-up of violence along the Israel-Gaza border last month that escalated into the current fighting. "The world must understand that Gaza has decided to end the blockade by its blood and its heroism," deputy Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh said in a televised address on Monday. Livni said the Hamas demands were unacceptable to both Israel and Egypt.

In Israel, the military said it had identified the remains of six soldiers killed in an attack on their armoured vehicle in Gaza on Sunday and was trying to identify the seventh.

Prompting widespread celebrations in Gaza, Hamas's armed wing announced on Sunday that it had captured a soldier. It displayed a photo ID and army serial number of the man, but did not show any image of him in their hands.

The Israeli military believes it was impossible for anyone to have survived the direct hit on the armoured vehicle in which the missing man was travelling.

Israel has agreed to mass releases of Palestinian prisoners in the past to secure the freedom of captured soldiers, or even for the return of the bodies of its citizens.

(GNN)(AIP)(Reuters)(Additional reporting by Noah Browning in Gaza, Arshad Mohammed, Shadia Nasralla and Yasmine Saleh in Cairo, Ali Sawafta in Ramallah and Maayan Lubell in Jerusalem; Writing by Jeffrey Heller and Crispian Balmer; Editing by Giles Elgood, Ruth Pitchford and Tom Heneghan)

8:16 am

Qatar to host #Gaza ceasefire talks with Abbas and U.N. chief

(#GNN) - #Qatar will host a #meeting between #Palestinian #President Mahmoud Abbas and U.N. #Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Sunday to try to push for an end to fighting in the Gaza Strip that has killed more than 300 people, a senior Qatari source told Reuters.

Due to take place in Doha, the meeting will be chaired by the Gulf state's emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, who has been acting as a "channel of communication" between the Islamist Hamas group and the international community, said the source.

"Qatar has presented Hamas' demands to the international community. The list has been presented to France and to the U.N. The talks tomorrow will be to further negotiate these conditions."

Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, has rejected Egyptian efforts to end the fighting that has killed at least 370 Palestinians, mostly civilians, saying any deal must include an end to a blockade of the coastal area and a recommitment to a ceasefire reached in an eight-day war there in 2012.

The conditions include the release of prisoners re-arrested since a 2011 exchange deal with Israel, the opening of Gaza-Israel border crossings and an end to an Israeli blockade on the Gaza seaport, a Hamas source in Doha told Reuters.

"In general, Israel must end all forms of aggression and attacks, end the blockade of Gaza and remove the actions that resulted from its military offensive in the West Bank after June 12," Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri told Reuters in the Palestinian Territories.

Western diplomatic sources see Qatar as a strategic player in reaching an effective ceasefire deal as the wealthy Gulf Arab state hosts a large number of exiled Islamists from across the Middle East, including Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal.

Meshaal visited Kuwait on Sunday and held talks with the Gulf state's emir, whose country currently holds the rotating presidency of the Arab League, Kuwait's state news agency said.

The senior Qatari source said Abbas was also due to hold talks with Meshaal following his meeting with the U.N. secretary-general.

"Qatar will not put any pressure on Hamas to bring down or reduce or change their demands. Qatar is only acting as a communication channel," the source said.

Egypt said on Saturday it had no plans to revise its ceasefire proposal, which Hamas has already rejected. And the Hamas source in Doha said the group has no plans to change its conditions for a ceasefire.

"We want the rights of our people. Palestinians on the ground are supporting us and we will get them back their rights," said the source.

Ban was also due to visit Cairo, Jerusalem and Ramallah in the West Bank during a visit to the Middle East.

(GNN)(AIP)(Reuters)(Additional reporting by Michelle Nichols in New York and Nidal Al Mughrabi in Gaza; editing by Sami Aboudi and Tom Pfeiffer)

12:18 pm

Israel, Palestinians battle as Egyptian-proposed Gaza ceasefire collapses

(GNN) - Israel resumed air strikes in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday after agreeing to an Egyptian-proposed ceasefire deal that failed to get Hamas militants to halt rocket attacks.

The week-old conflict seemed to be at a turning point, with Hamas defying Arab and Western calls to cease fire and Israel threatening to step up an offensive that could include an invasion of the densely populated enclave of 1.8 million.

Under a blueprint announced by Egypt - Gaza's neighbour and whose military-backed government has been at odds with Islamist Hamas - a mutual "de-escalation" was to have begun at 9 a.m. (0600 GMT), with hostilities ceasing within 12 hours.

Hamas' armed wing, the Izz el-Deen al-Qassam Brigades, rejected the ceasefire deal, a proposal that addressed in only general terms some of its key demands, and said its battle with Israel would "increase in ferocity and intensity".

But Moussa Abu Marzouk, a Hamas political official who was in Cairo, said the movement, which is seeking a deal that would ease the Egyptian and Israeli border restrictions throttling Gaza's economy, had made no final decision on Cairo's proposal.

The Israeli military said that since the ceasefire deal was to have gone into effect, Hamas had fired 123 rockets at Israel, one killing a civilian - the first Israeli fatality in the fighting.

A Palestinian civilian was killed in an air strike in Khan Younis, raising the death toll in the Gaza Strip in eight days of fighting to 188, including at least 150 civilians, among them 31 children, according to Gaza medical officials.

Israel's Iron Dome anti-missile system intercepted 20 of the Hamas projectiles, including two over the Tel Aviv area, and the rest caused no damage or casualties.

Hamas and Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the attack against Israel's commercial capital, which has been targeted frequently since the war began, as well as for the rocket that killed the Israeli man along the border.

Six hours after implementation of the truce was to have begun, and citing the persistent salvoes, Israel resumed attacks in Gaza. The military said it targeted at least 20 of Hamas's hidden rocket launchers, tunnels and weapons storage facilities.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in broadcast remarks late on Tuesday that Israel had no choice but to "expand and intensify" its campaign on Hamas, though he did not specifically mention the possibility of a ground incursion.

The Iron Dome has shot down most projectiles liable to hit Israeli towns and cities, but the rocket salvoes have made a rush to shelters a daily routine for hundreds of thousands of people across the country.

The surge in hostilities over the past week was prompted by the murder last month of three Jewish seminary students in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and the revenge killing on July 2 of a Palestinian youth in Jerusalem. Israel said on Monday three Jews in police custody had confessed to killing the Palestinian.

KERRY CONDEMNS "BRAZEN" HAMAS ROCKET FIRE

Sirens sounded on Tuesday in areas up to 130 km (80 miles) north of the Gaza Strip.

Speaking in Vienna, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry supported Israel: "I cannot condemn strongly enough the actions of Hamas in so brazenly firing rockets, in multiple numbers, in the face of a goodwill effort (to secure) a ceasefire."

Netanyahu, whose security cabinet voted 6-2 earlier on Tuesday to accept the truce, had cautioned that Israel would respond strongly if rockets continued to fly.

He said he expected the "full support from the responsible members of the international community" for any intensification of Israeli attacks in response to Hamas spurning a truce.

Earlier, Sami Abu Zuhri, a Hamas spokesman in Gaza, said that demands the movement has made must be met before it lays down its weapons.

Other Palestinian militant groups - Islamic Jihad, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine - also said they had not yet agreed to the Egyptian offer.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who reached an agreement with Hamas in April that led to the formation of a unity government last month, called for acceptance of the proposal, the official Palestinian news agency WAFA said.

Abbas was due in Cairo on Wednesday for talks with President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, the Palestinian leader's spokesman said.

The Arab League, at a meeting on Monday, also welcomed the ceasefire plan.

ISRAELI GROUND ASSAULT POSSIBLE

Israel had mobilised tens of thousands of troops for a threatened Gaza invasion if the rocket volleys persisted.

"We still have the possibility of going in, under cabinet authority, and putting an end to (the rockets)," Amos Gilad, a senior Israeli defence official, said.

Under the proposal announced by Egypt's Foreign Ministry, high-level delegations from Israel and the Palestinian factions would hold separate talks in Cairo within 48 hours to consolidate the ceasefire with "confidence-building measures".

Hamas leaders have said any deal must include an end to Israel's blockade of Gaza and a recommitment to a truce reached in an eight-day war there in 2012.

Hamas also wants Egypt to ease curbs at its Rafah crossing with Gaza imposed after the military ousted President Mohamed Mursi, an Islamist, a year ago.

The Egyptian proposal made no mention of Rafah or when restrictions might be eased.

Hamas has faced a cash crisis and Gaza's economic hardship has deepened as a result of Egypt's destruction of cross-border smuggling tunnels. Egyptian authorities also accuse Hamas of assisting anti-government Islamist militants in Egypt's Sinai peninsula, an allegation the Palestinian group denies.

Hamas has said it also wants the release of hundreds of its activists arrested in the West Bank while Israel searched for the three missing teenagers.

The proposed truce also made no mention of the detainees.

Adnan Abu Amer, a political analyst in Gaza, said it appeared that Egypt had deliberately ensured that their initiative would fall short of Hamas's demands, in an attempt bid to make the movement look rejectionist.

"Egypt stood by Israel's side, as if it was trying to punish Hamas and give Israel some time to pursue its military campaign," he said.

(GNN)(Reuters)(AIP)(Additional reporting by Allyn Fisher-Ilan, Maayan Lubell in Jerusalem, Noah Browning in Gaza and Michael Georgy and Yasmine Saleh in Cairo; Writing by Jeffrey Heller and Dan Williams Editing by Angus MacSwan)