Israel and Hamas held their fire around the Gaza Strip on Monday as Egypt worked to broker a comprehensive deal to end violence and lift the blockade of the impoverished Palestinian territory.
Palestinians said the two sides have made headway towards a truce, but Israel, while stressing the army would not hit Gaza if militants stopped firing rockets, insisted it was not negotiating a ceasefire.
For a third day in a row, the Israeli army did not strike the Hamas-run territory and said Gaza fighters had all but halted their barrages, launching just one rocket and one mortar round since Sunday.
More than 130 Palestinians were killed in a broad Israeli offensive launched late last month to stop the rocket fire, raising concerns about the future of already faltering peace talks.
But efforts to bring about a ceasefire have gathered pace, with senior US and Israeli envoys holding talks in Egypt over the past week, as have delegations from Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
"With the developments in Egypt, I think there is an agreement in principle on that and a deal might be reached in the coming few days," Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said.
But Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert insisted "there is no deal, there are no negotiations, either direct or indirect."
"If the terror stops, if the Qassams stop landing ... Israel will have no reason to fight the terror organizations there ... We will have no reason to retaliate," he said at a news conference.
His comments contradicted statements from Egyptian and Palestinian officials that Cairo, supported by the US, has been working on a deal.
"For the moment, we are at a preliminary stage over this; we are listening to all the parties so as to be able then to draw up a detailed and comprehensive initiative," said Mohammed Bassiuni, chairman of the Egyptian parliament's national security committee.
CONDITIONS: The Russian president said a deal that was scuppered by ‘elites’ in the US and Europe should be revived, as Ukraine was generally satisfied with it Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday said that he was ready for talks with Ukraine, after having previously rebuffed the idea of negotiations while Kyiv’s offensive into the Kursk region was ongoing. Ukraine last month launched a cross-border incursion into Russia’s Kursk region, sending thousands of troops across the border and seizing several villages. Putin said shortly after there could be no talk of negotiations. Speaking at a question and answer session at Russia’s Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, Putin said that Russia was ready for talks, but on the basis of an aborted deal between Moscow’s and Kyiv’s negotiators reached in Istanbul, Turkey,
In months, Lo Yuet-ping would bid farewell to a centuries-old village he has called home in Hong Kong for more than seven decades. The Cha Kwo Ling village in east Kowloon is filled with small houses built from metal sheets and stones, as well as old granite buildings, contrasting sharply with the high-rise structures that dominate much of the Asian financial hub. Lo, 72, has spent his entire life here and is among an estimated 860 households required to move under a government redevelopment plan. He said he would miss the rich history, unique culture and warm interpersonal kindness that defined life in
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A French woman whose husband has admitted to enlisting dozens of strangers to rape her while she was drugged on Thursday told his trial that police had saved her life by uncovering the crimes. “The police saved my life by investigating Mister Pelicot’s computer,” Gisele Pelicot told the court in the southern city of Avignon, referring to her husband — one of 51 of her alleged abusers on trial — by only his surname. Speaking for the first time since the extraordinary trial began on Monday, Gisele Pelicot, now 71, revealed her emotion in almost 90 minutes of testimony, recounting her mysterious
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