Israelis, Palestinians accept Egyptian proposal for new 72-hour ceasefire
Israelis and Palestinian negotiators on Sunday accepted an Egyptian proposal for a 72-hour ceasefire in Gaza, government officials said.
It was not immediately clear how the agreement was reached for the ceasefire that is set to begin one minute past midnight local time (21:01GMT).
Israel's negotiating team was expected to travel to Cairo after the truce was up and running, an official said.
Egypt urged both sides to observe the new temporary lull.
"As the events continue to escalate in the Gaza Strip, and given the necessity to protect innocent blood, Egypt calls on both sides, Israelis and Palestinians, to commit to a 72-hour ceasefire effective Monday 00:01 Cairo time (21:01 GMT Sunday) ... and during this time work to reach a comprehensive and permanent ceasefire," a foreign ministry statement said.
Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal said late Sunday that a lasting truce must lead to the lifting by Israel of its blockade of the Gaza Strip.
The 72-hour ceasefire Hamas reached with Israel on Sunday "is one of the ways or tactics to ensure successful negotiations or to facilitate the delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza," said Meshaal.
The final "goal we insist on is having the demands of Palestinians met and the Gaza Strip exist without a blockade".
"We insist on this goal. In the case of Israeli procrastination or continued aggression, Hamas is ready with other Palestinian factions to resist on ground and politically and... to face all possibilities," he said.
Fragile negotiations between Palestinians and Israelis to bring an end to the 34-day Gaza conflict had earlier looked poised to come to an end Sunday with both sides threatening to disengage.
A senior Hamas official said Sunday there was a "weak" possibility that Gaza truce talks would succeed and that Palestinian negotiators could leave Cairo after a meeting with Egyptian mediators.
"The possibility of negotiations to succeed is weak. It is possible that the Palestinian delegation will leave to consult its leaders any minute," Ezzat al-Rishq, who is taking part in the Cairo truce talks, told AFP.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told his cabinet as it met at the defence ministry in Tel Aviv that the country will not engage in talks until Palestinian rocket fire halts.
"Israel will not engage in negotiations under fire, and will continue to act in every way to change the current reality and to bring quiet to all of its citizens," Netanyahu said.
Palestinian demands include freer movement of people and goods across the borders, the release of political prisoners and reconstruction of the Strip - demands that reportedly have remained on the table, an official involved in the talks told the Wall Street Journal.
"Not a single word has changed in the proposal [to end the crisis]," Palestinian ambassador to Egypt Gamal al-Shobaki told the Wall Street Journal on Saturday night.
An earlier ceasefire brokered by Cairo ended on Friday 0500 GMT, and since then both Hamas and Israel have resumed fighting in the Gaza Strip.
Israeli airstrikes, primarily targeting the southern cities of Rafah and Khan Younis, killed three Gazans on Saturday night including a 13-year-old girl and 14-year old boy and injured dozens of others, Ma'an news agency reported.
On Sunday, eight Palestinians were killed, including a woman and two 17-year-olds, in a barrage of Israeli air strikes and 10 bodies were pulled from the rubble east of Gaza City, local medics said.
Throughout the day, Israeli warplanes hit 41 targets, including a factory in Gaza City used to make cleaning products close to the main hotel where foreign journalists are based.
Militants launched 35 rockets over the border, 23 of which struck southern Israel and eight which were shot down, with the rest falling short inside Palestinian territory, the army said.
The Gazans killed on Sunday raise the death toll in the Gaza Strip during the month-long conflict to at least 1,939 Palestinians, just under three quarters of whom were civilians, according to the UN. A total of 67 Israelis have been killed, including three civilians, according to Israeli officials.
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