Indirect negotiations between Palestinians and Israelis for a truce in Gaza resumed yesterday, a Palestinian official said, as the clock ticked toward the midnight expiry of a three-day halt to hostilities.
The talks, held at Egypt’s General Intelligence headquarters in Cairo, were expected to last all day as Egyptian mediators race to bridge the gaps between the two sides.
The negotiations “are in a very sensitive stage and we hope to reach an agreement” before midnight (9pm GMT), Palestinian delegation head Azzam al-Ahmed said.
Nearly 2,000 Palestinians have been killed since Israel launched its offensive on July 8 to halt cross-border rocket fire. On the Israeli side, 67 people have been killed.
Egypt brokered the 72-hour truce that took effect at 00:01 on Monday and has urged the warring sides to reach “a comprehensive and permanent ceasefire.”
The Palestinians, included representatives of Gaza’s de facto rulers Hamas, are demanding an end to the eight-year blockade of the enclave.
Palestinian officials said Israel had so far proposed easing restrictions at two of the six border crossings it shares with the Gaza Strip. The Palestinians have rejected an Israeli demand for Hamas and other militant groups in Gaza to disarm.
Hamas’ negotiating position has been strengthened by support from moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
The group signed a unity deal with Abbas’ Palestinian Authority in April, ending a seven-year rift.
A member of the Palestinian delegation said yesterday that his team was considering an Egyptian proposal tabled on Tuesday calling for easing parts of the Israeli blockade.
However, it leaves the key areas of disagreement, including Hamas’ demand for a full lifting of the blockade and Israeli calls for Hamas to disarm, to later negotiations.
The Palestinian negotiator said he had some reservations about the plan and would try to improve it.
“We would like to see more cross-border freedom, and also to have the question of a Gaza seaport and airport discussed,” he said on condition of anonymity.
On the ground in Gaza, a foreign journalist was among at least five people killed in Beit Lahiya yesterday as Palestinian experts were dismantling an Israeli missile, medics and officials said.
Muayin al-Masri, spokesperson for Kamal Adwan hospital, said another five people were wounded, with three in critical condition.
The journalist was at the scene to cover the dismantling unexploded missile, although there was no official word on the victim’s identity.
Another local journalist working with the male victim was badly wounded, a foreign reporter said.
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion
UNDER INVESTIGATION: Members of the local Muslim community had raised concerns with the police about the boy, who officials said might have been radicalized online A 16-year-old boy armed with a knife was shot dead by police after he stabbed a man in the Australian west coast city of Perth, officials said yesterday. The incident occurred in the parking lot of a hardware store in suburban Willetton on Saturday night. The teen attacked the man and then rushed at police officers before he was shot, Western Australian Premier Roger Cook told reporters. “There are indications he had been radicalized online,” Cook told a news conference, adding that it appeared he acted alone. A man in his 30s was found at the scene with a stab wound to his back.