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Palestinians reach long-term truce with Israel: Officials

 
A Palestinian woman and children stand in a room of their house which was destroyed overnight by Israeli airstrikes on August 26, 2014 in Gaza City.
 
 
Tue Aug 26, 2014 2:33PM GMT
 

Palestinian resistance groups and Israeli officials have reportedly reached an agreement on a permanent ceasefire for the besieged Gaza Strip.

According to Palestinian sources, the Palestinians and the Israelis agreed to a permanent ceasefire on Tuesday.

"The contacts that have been going on have agreed a permanent ceasefire, a (deal to) end the blockade and a guarantee that Gaza's demands and needs will be met," media quoted a senior unnamed Palestinian official as saying.

Meanwhile, a senior official from Palestinian resistance group said  the truce marks a victory for the Palestinians. Hamas leader Mussa Abu Marzuk said the truce is expected to be officially announced in the Egyptian capital Cairo.

The developments come as previous temporary ceasefires have failed to produce a deal between the two sides.

The contentious subject at the Cairo talks has been the issue of the Israeli blockade of the impoverished territory.

The Palestinian resistance movement Hamas wants the seven-year siege of Gaza, which has crippled the coastal enclave and tightly restricted the movement of goods and people, to be removed.

The Palestinians also demand that the coastal territory be allowed to open an airport and seaport.

Israel’s launched an aerial military campaign against Gaza in early July, but Tel Aviv later expanded its operation with a ground invasion.

More than 2,137 Palestinians, including around 570 children, have been killed so far in the Israeli onslaught on Gaza. Some 11,000 others have been wounded.

Most of the victims were civilians, including children, women and the elderly.

Tel Aviv says 68 Israelis have been killed in the conflict, but Hamas puts the number at more than 150.

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Egypt state media announces Gaza war cease-fire

 

CAIRO (AP) -- Egyptian state media has announced a cease-fire between Hamas and Israel to halt the seven-week Gaza war, which has killed over 2,200 people.

 

Both Egyptian state television and the state news agency MENA announced the deal Tuesday night. Both said it begins at 7 p.m. local time (1600 GMT), without elaborating.

Earlier, officials with from Hamas and Islamic Jihad, the main groups fighting in Gaza against Israel, said a cease-fire had been reached. Israeli officials have not immediately commented. They described it as an "open-ended" cease-fire that included an Israeli agreement to ease its blockade of Gaza to allow relief supplies and construction materials into the war-battered territory.

Israeli officials have yet to comment.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

Officials from Hamas and Islamic Jihad, the main groups fighting in Gaza, said Tuesday they have reached a deal with Israel to end a seven-week war that has killed more than 2,000 Palestinians.

There was no immediate Israeli comment.

Ziad Nakhala, a senior official in Islamic Jihad, said the deal calls for an "open-ended" cease-fire, and an Israeli agreement to ease its blockade of Gaza to allow relief supplies and construction materials into the war-battered territory.

Talks on more complex issues, such as Hamas' demand to build an airport and a seaport for Gaza, would begin in a month, he said.

Egypt planned an announcement later Tuesday, he said.

The Hamas official, who spoke on condition of anonymity pending the announcement, confirmed the terms.

If the details of the cease-fire are confirmed, it would effectively mean Hamas and Islamic Jihad settled for terms that are similar to those that ended more than a week of fighting with Israel in 2012.

Under those terms, Israel promised to ease restrictions gradually, while Hamas pledged to halt rocket fire from Gaza at Israel. The truce held for long stretches, but Gaza's border blockade also remained largely intact.

Israel and Egypt imposed the blockade in 2007, after Hamas seized Gaza by force in 2007. Under the restrictions, virtually all of Gaza's 1.8 million people cannot trade or travel. Only a few thousand are able to leave the coastal territory every month.

During the war, Hamas had said it would only cease fire if the blockade is lifted.

However, Israeli pressure on the group has been escalating. Hamas is believed to be left with just one-third of its initial rocket arsenal of 10,000, while Israel says it has destroyed most of Hamas' network of military attack tunnels.

Israeli strikes have destroyed or severely damaged more than 17,000 Gaza homes, according to U.N. estimates, leaving about 100,000 people homeless. The number of dead has also been rising steadily, reaching at least 2,138 by Tuesday, with more than 11,000 Gazans wounded since July 8.

On the Israeli side, 68 people have been killed, all but four of them soldiers. Thousands of Israelis living near Gaza have fled their homes, including in recent days when Gaza militants stepped up mortar fire on southern Israel.

In Gaza, Israel also escalated its strikes, toppling five high-rise buildings housing offices, apartments and shops since this weekend.

On Tuesday, Israel bombed two Gaza City high-rises.

The strikes leveled the 15-story Basha Tower with apartments and offices and severely damaged the Italian Complex, built in the 1990s by an Italian businessman, with dozens of shops and offices.

Both buildings were evacuated after receiving warnings of impending strikes. Gaza health official Ashraf al-Kidra said 25 people were wounded in the attack on the Italian Complex.

One resident of the Italian Complex, 38-year-old engineer Nael Mousa, said that he, his four children and 70-year-old mother had managed to flee the building late Monday night after a guard had alerted them of an impending strike, and that he was in his car some 300 meters (yards) away when it was bombed by an Israeli F-16 fighter jet.

Within two hours, he said, it had been completely leveled by at least five additional bombs.

"I have become homeless, my children's fear will never be soothed and something new has now been added to our feelings toward Israel and all the world, which has been looking on without doing anything," he said.

In the past, the military has hit targets in high-rises in pinpoint strikes, but left the buildings standing.

The objects of the latest strikes contain apartments inhabited almost exclusively by middle-class Gazans, who up until now have been largely spared the considerable dislocation that has affected tens of thousands of other residents in densely populated neighborhoods of the coastal strip.

That has raised the possibility that the Israeli military is trying to use better-off Gazans, like professionals and Palestinian Authority employees, to put pressure on Hamas to end the fighting on Israel's terms.

The Israeli military said it targeted sites linked to militants Tuesday, but made no specific reference to the two buildings. Israel alleges Hamas often operates from civilian locations. The military has not said why it has begun collapsing large buildings, rather than carrying out pinpointed strikes against suspected militant targets located there.

In an email message to The Associated Press, military spokesman Lt. Col. Peter Lerner said the strikes were "a direct result to Hamas' decision to situate their terrorist infrastructure within the civilian sphere including schools, hospitals and high-rise buildings."

He said Israel will not "enable Hamas to continue to kill Israelis, target our towns and cities and expect to operate without consequence to their facilities, militant operatives and the leadership of their heinous attacks against Israel."

FM

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