A new, five-day truce between Israel and Hamas appeared to be holding yesterday despite a shaky start, after both sides agreed to give Egyptian-brokered peace negotiations in Cairo more time to try to end the Gaza war.
The Israeli military said Gaza militants had breached the truce by firing eight rockets at Israel shortly after midnight. In response, Israeli fighter planes targeted “rocket launchers and terror sites” across the enclave. No casualties were reported and hostilities died down by dawn.
The second extension of the ceasefire, this time for five days rather than three, has raised hopes that a longer-term resolution to the conflict can be found, although the way ahead remains fraught with difficulty.
A senior Hamas official who returned to Gaza from the negotiations in Cairo said they had been tough but expressed some optimism.
“There is still a real chance to clinch an agreement,” Khalil al-Hayya told reporters, saying that it depended on Israel not “playing with language to void our demands”.
“The Egyptian mediators are entering a good effort and we wish them success in this negotiation battle.”
After more than a month of intense conflict, which killed 1,945 Palestinians, many of them civilians, as well as 64 Israeli soldiers and three civilians in Israel, there is little appetite on either side for a resumption of bloodshed.
Hamas and its allies want an end to the Israeli and Egyptian blockade on Gaza. But Israel and Egypt harbour deep security concerns about Hamas, the dominant Islamist group in the small, Mediterranean coastal enclave, complicating any deal on easing border restrictions.
Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh told Al-Aqsa Hamas television on Wednesday that Hamas would insist on “lifting the Gaza blockade” and reducing restrictions on the territory’s 1.8 million people’s movements as a prerequisite to a “permanent calm”.
Members of the Palestinian delegation said they would return to Cairo for more talks on Sunday.
Israel’s security Cabinet, which has determined the course of the Gaza conflict, was scheduled to meet later yesterday to discuss the proposals being put forward by the Egyptians.
Egyptian and Palestinian sources said Israel had tentatively agreed to relax curbs on the movement of people and goods across the border, subject to certain conditions.
A Palestinian demand for a Gaza sea port and reconstruction of an airport destroyed in previous conflicts with Israel has been a stumbling block, with Israel citing security reasons for opposing their operation.
The sides have agreed to delay discussion of any agreement on the ports for a month, a Palestinian official said.
As part of Egypt’s blueprint, Israel would expand the area where it allows Gaza’s fishermen to operate to 10km from the shore, from five kilometres at present.
“It will increase gradually to no less than 12 miles in coordination between the Palestinian Authority and Israel,” the official said, noting that any deal is likely to foresee an expanded role in Gaza for Western-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
Abbas’s Fatah group, based in the occupied West Bank, formally ended a seven-year rift with Hamas in April, allowing the formation of a Palestinian unity government under Abbas.
The Egyptian plan would also reduce the size of a “no-go” area for Palestinians on the Gaza side of the border from 300 metres to 100 metres, so that local farmers can recover plots lost during security crackdowns.
Israel and Hamas have not met face-to-face in Cairo: Israel regards Hamas, which advocates its destruction, as a terrorist group.