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Israel, Hamas agree brief truce

July 26, 2014

Israel has confirmed it will observe a brief ceasefire in the Gaza strip for humanitarian reasons. A Hamas statement earlier said the group had agreed to the temporary cessation of violence.

https://p.dw.com/p/1CjC4
Israeli soldiers stand on top of their tanks across from the northern Gaza Strip July 18, 2014. Israel intensified its land offensive in Gaza with artillery, tanks and gunboats on Friday and warned it could "significantly widen" an operation Palestinian officials said was killing ever greater numbers of civilians. The Israeli land advance followed 10 days of barrages against Gaza from air and sea, hundreds of rockets fired by Hamas into Israel and failed attempts by Egypt, a broker of ceasefires in previous Israeli-Palestinian flare-ups, to secure a truce. REUTERS/ Baz Ratner
Image: Reuters

The Israeli military said it would observe "a humanitarian window in the Gaza Strip" on Saturday, lasting for 12 hours from 8 a.m. local time (0500 UTC).

However, a statement from the Israeli army warned that Gazans who had evacuated homes that were deemed to be under threat in planned attacks should not return to them. It also said that the military "shall respond if terrorists choose to exploit" the pause to attack Israeli troops "or fire at Israeli civilians."

Israel also stipulated that it would continue operations to destroy a network of tunnels between Gaza and Israel.

A statement from Hamas earlier said that it and other militant groups in Gaza had reached "national consensus on a humanitarian truce" at the same time.

Gazan officials, meanwhile, warned people not to approach bombed buildings or go near militant bases for fear of "explosive objects."

Cairo talks as fighting rages

The possibility of a ceasfire had been raised earlier in the day, with US Secretary of State John Kerry saying the two sides agreed a general framework, but that there were details that still needed work.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who was present with Kerry for talks being held in Cairo, said any truce could begin with a 12-hour extendable pause in fighting.

Fighting between Israel and Hamas continued on Friday despite intensifying international mediation efforts.

The 18-day conflict, in which Israel has responded to rocket fire from the Gaza Strip with air strikes and a ground offensive, has killed more than 800 Palestinians, many of them civilians, and some 38 Israelis, most of them soldiers.

Friday saw the violence spill over to the West Bank, with six Palestinians killed in separate incidents near the cities of Nablus and Hebron. Witnesses blamed one shooting on an apparent Israeli settler.

Israel reported that three more of its soldiers were killed on Friday in Gaza and also announced that a soldier unaccounted for after an ambush six days ago was definitely dead, although his body had not yet been recovered.

rc/jm (AP, dpa, Reuters)