ISRAEL: Israeli tanks and soldiers are deployed near the Gaza border as a three-day ceasefire holdS

Record ID: 398635

  • Title: ISRAEL: Israeli tanks and soldiers are deployed near the Gaza border as a three-day ceasefire holdS
  • Date: 7th August 2014
  • Summary: ISRAEL-GAZA BORDER, ISRAEL (AUGUST 7, 2014) (REUTERS) SUNRISE ISRAELI FLAG AT SUNRISE ISRAELI FLAG AND TANK AT SUNRISE TANKS FARMERS DRIVING TRACTOR IN FIELD NEAR BORDER VARIOUS OF TANKS WITH ISRAELI FLAGS ARMOURED VEHICLE DRIVING VARIOUS OF ISRAELI SOLDIERS MAKING COFFEE SOLDIERS ON TANK GAZA AS SEEN IN THE DISTANCE / SOLDIERS ON TANK
  • Embargoed: 22nd August 2014 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Israel
  • Country: Israel
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVA1LPKWY7E74GI4JP93DAXGTMCM
  • Story Text: Israeli forces were deployed near the Gaza border as a 72-hour truce held through its third day on Thursday (August 7). Israel said it was ready to extend the deal as Egyptian mediators pursued talks with Israelis and Palestinians on an enduring end to a conflict that devastated the Hamas-ruled enclave.
    Egypt's intelligence chief met a Palestinian delegation in Cairo, the state news agency MENA said, a day after he conferred with Israeli representatives. The Palestinian team, led by an official from Western-backed President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah party, includes envoys from Hamas and the Islamic Jihad group.
    Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shukri told reporters his country was working hard for a deal.
    An Israeli official said Israel "has expressed its readiness to extend the truce under its current terms" beyond a Friday deadline for the three-day deal that took effect on Tuesday.
    A senior Hamas political leader based in Cairo, Moussa Abu Marzouk, said on Twitter late on Wednesday night that "there is no agreement" to prolong the ceasefire.
    Israel withdrew ground forces from tiny, densely populated Gaza on Tuesday morning and started a 72-hour, Egyptian-brokered ceasefire with Hamas as a first step towards a long-term deal.
    It showed signs of expecting the truce to last by lifting official emergency restrictions on civilians living in Israel's south near Gaza, permitting more public activities and urging everyone to resume their routines.
    Streets in towns in southern Israel, which had been under daily rocket fire from the Gaza Strip, were filled again with playing children. The military said that two rocket-warning sirens sounded in the south proved to be false alarms.
    In Gaza, where some half-million people have been displaced by a month of bloodshed, some residents left U.N. shelters to trek back to neighbourhoods where whole blocks have been destroyed by Israeli shelling and the smell of decomposing bodies fouls the air.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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