This article is from the source 'nytimes' and was first published or seen
on .
It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.
Amid Gaza Cease-Fire Talks, Israel and Palestinians Trade Blows
Israel and Palestinians Accept New Cease-Fire Deal
(about 4 hours later)
JERUSALEM — Israel and the Palestinians traded warnings on Sunday about the Gaza conflict as the fate of feverish Egyptian-mediated efforts for a renewed cease-fire hung in the balance.
JERUSALEM — Israeli and Palestinian negotiators on Sunday accepted Egypt’s call for a new 72-hour cease-fire in the Gaza fighting to start at one minute after midnight Monday and for a resumption of Egyptian-mediated negotiations toward a more durable solution for Gaza.
Palestinian negotiators in Cairo said Sunday afternoon that they had accepted an Egyptian proposal for a new, three-day cease-fire, The Associated Press reported. But around the same time, there were reports of more rocket fire from Gaza into southern Israel.
The Israeli government said in a statement that it had accepted the Egyptian cease-fire request. On Sunday evening, Azzam al-Ahmed, the lead Palestinian negotiator in Cairo, said the delegation, which includes Hamas, had notified the Egyptians “that we agreed on the cease-fire based on the Egyptian statement.”
“Actions speak louder than words,” a senior Israeli official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the delicate diplomacy.
The last cease-fire expired on Friday, and Hamas, the Islamic group that dominates Gaza, fired rockets into Israel, prompting Israel to resume its airstrikes.
Earlier Sunday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reiterated Israel’s position that it would “not negotiate under fire.”
The Egyptian Foreign Ministry said in a statement that the new, temporary cease-fire was intended to facilitate the flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza and the repair of essential infrastructure and to allow a window for the resumption of “indirect, immediate and continuous negotiations” for a “complete and permanent cease-fire.”
In remarks broadcast at the start of Israel’s weekly cabinet meeting, which Mr. Netanyahu held at the military’s headquarters in Tel Aviv, he said that the Israeli military operation was continuing. “At no stage did we declare its conclusion,” he said.
Palestinian negotiators have remained in Cairo. An Israeli official said the Israeli delegation, which left Cairo on Friday morning, would return on Monday if the cease-fire held overnight. In the meantime, contacts between Israel and Egypt have continued by telephone.
“The operation will continue until its goal is met: the restoration of quiet for a long period,” he added.
In Cairo, Azzam al-Ahmed, the leader of the Palestinian delegation to the talks in Egypt, had said that the Palestinians would not accept any Israeli conditions for a continuation of the negotiations. He added that if the Israeli delegation did not return to Cairo on Sunday, the Palestinian delegation, which includes representatives of the West Bank-based Palestinian leadership and Hamas, the group that controls Gaza, would leave for consultations with the leadership.
The tough talk came as hostilities resumed Friday after Hamas rejected an extension of a three-day cease-fire that expired on Friday morning, setting off a new round of rocket fire and airstrikes.
But the latest exchanges of Palestinian rocket fire and Israeli airstrikes have been on a lower scale than the fierce fighting of the past month, which claimed more than 1,900 Palestinian lives, many of them civilians, and killed 67, mostly soldiers, on the Israeli side.
Israel said its military campaign was intended to quell rocket fire from Gaza and destroy Hamas’s network of tunnels, several of which run under the border and have been used for attacks in Israeli territory. Israel has demanded internationally backed measures to prevent Hamas from rearming as part of any longer cease-fire. Hamas is demanding, among other things, a complete lifting of the blockade of Gaza and the free movement of people and goods through its border crossings with Israel and Egypt.
In Gaza, Ahmed al-Masri, 17, was killed and another teenager wounded in an Israeli airstrike on agricultural land in Deir al-Balah, and a woman identified as Amani Baraka was killed in an airstrike that hit her home in Khan Younis, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. The Israeli military said it struck nearly 30 targets in Gaza on Sunday, without providing details.
By Sunday afternoon, Gaza militants had fired more than a dozen rockets into Israel. The Israeli military said they fell in open ground and caused no injuries.
In the West Bank, an 11-year-old Palestinian boy was killed by Israeli soldiers during a protest near Hebron. The military said that the soldiers were responding to protesters who were throwing rocks and that the shooting was being investigated. A relative said the boy was not involved in the protest.
With the Gaza situation teetering between a new cease-fire and further escalation, Mr. Netanyahu came under renewed pressure from right-wing members of his coalition government for tougher action, including calls to invade Gaza again and crush Hamas once and for all.
Avigdor Lieberman, the Israeli foreign minister and the leader of the ultranationalist party Yisrael Beiteinu, said of Hamas: “We see that their minimum demands are way beyond the maximum that Israel can agree to. What is left is to defeat Hamas, to clean out the territory and to get out as quickly as possible.”
