LATEST DEVELOPMENTS
• Israel and the Palestinians began negotiating a settlement to the fighting in Gaza as a cease fire continued.
• In the possible outline of a settlement, the Palestinians called for the opening of Gaza’s borders, closed by Israel and Egypt, while Israel sought a guarantee that radical group Hamas had disarmed and could not regain its weapons.
• Israel announced the arrest of what it said was the Hamas-linked mastermind behind the abduction and killing of three Israeli youths, an event that helped prompt the fighting. Hamas has denied any connection to the slayings.
• Palestinians who had fled their Gaza neighborhoods took advantage of the cease-fire to inspect their homes, few of which remained undamaged.
— News services
Indirect Israeli-Palestinian negotiations over extending a cease-fire in the Gaza Strip and ending a blockade of the battered territory began in Cairo on Wednesday, with both sides taking hard-line positions.
Israel wants the Palestinian militant group Hamas, which controls Gaza, to disarm — or at least to accede to measures ensuring it cannot re-arm — before considering the group’s demand that the territory’s borders be opened. Israel and Egypt, which like Israel is hostile to Hamas, imposed a closure after the Hamas takeover of Gaza in 2007.
Hazem Abu Shanab, a member of Fatah, one of the main factions involved in the talks, said disarmament would require Israel to pull out from occupied Palestinian territory.
“As long as there is occupation, there will be resistance and there will be weapons,” he said. “The armament is linked to the occupation.”
In Jerusalem, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu defended Israel’s intense bombardment of Gaza over the month prior to the cease-fire, saying that despite the high civilian death toll in Gaza it was a “justified” and “proportionate” response to Hamas attacks.
Speaking to international journalists, Netanyahu presented video footage he said showed militants firing rockets from areas near schools, and Hamas deploying civilians as human shields.
“Our enemy is Hamas, our enemies are the other terrorist organizations trying to kill our people, and we have taken extraordinary measures to avoid civilian casualties,” he said.
In addition to Hamas, the Palestinian delegation in Cairo is composed of negotiators from all major factions. It is meeting with Egypt’s intelligence chief for briefings on Israel’s positions.
“The most important thing to us is removing the blockade and starting to reconstruct Gaza,” said Bassam Salhi, a Palestinian delegate. “There can be no deal without that.”
Shukri said he hoped the cease-fire, set to expire at 8 a.m. Friday local time, would be extended. There has been no official Israeli response, though an official at Netanyahu’s office said Israel has “no problem” with “unconditional extensions of the cease-fire.” He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
Izzat al-Rishq, a senior Hamas member, told the Palestinian news agency that the delegation has yet to receive an answer to their demands and would condition any acceptance of an extended cease-fire on how the talks progress. “Our finger is on the trigger,” he said.
Several previous cease-fires have broken down, but this time the outlines of a possible solution have emerged, including an internationally funded reconstruction of Gaza overseen by a Palestinian unity government led by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. The Western-backed Abbas, based in the West Bank. lost control of Gaza in the Hamas takeover, but hid government and Hamas announced plans for a unity government in June, before the recent fighting began.
In a step toward reconstruction, Norway is organizing a donor conference, tentatively set for the beginning of September.
But a statement by the Egyptian intelligence agency indicated Egypt — which see Hamas as aligned with Islamists factions it has outlawed — would not agree to easing the blockade on its border with Gaza. That leaves any lifting of the border closure to Israel, which controls the seaward and most of the landward approaches to Gaza.
The current round of confrontations began with the June 12 abduction and killing of three Israeli teens in the West Bank. When Israel blamed Hamas and rounded up hundreds of its activists, the militants began firing hundreds of rockets into Israel.
Israel launched airstrikes on July 8 that it said were aimed at stopping the rocket fire, and expanded the operation on July 17 by sending in ground forces to destroy a network of tunnels Hamas used to stage cross-border attacks.
On Wednesday, Israel’s Justice Ministry announced the arrest of Hussam al-Qawasmi, the suspected mastermind behind the killing of the Israeli teens. He allegedly led a three-man cell affiliated with Hamas, though the militant group has not claimed any connection to the teens’ abduction and killings.
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