Salem-News.com Gaza articles

Talks to End War in Gaza Difficult Delegates Say

"We are facing difficult negotiations," Hamas' leader in Cairo, Moussa Abu Marzouk, said on Twitter.

(CAIRO) - Talks to end a month-long war between Israel and Gaza militants are "difficult", Palestinian delegates said on Tuesday, while Israeli officials said no progress had been made so far and fighting could soon resume.

As a 72-hour ceasefire held for a second day, Palestinian negotiators held fresh talks with Egyptian intelligence following a meeting on Monday that lasted nine hours.

Hamas Launches Rockets at Israel as Peace Talks Breakdown

A military spokesman said on Twitter: "After the 72-hour ceasefire, Hamas resumes indiscriminate rocket fire at Israel.

(JERUSALEM ) - Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip resumed rocket fire into Israel on Friday after Egyptian mediated talks in Cairo failed to extend a 72-hour truce in a nearly month long war.

As police said rocket warning sirens were sounding in southern Israel, the military's "Iron Dome" interceptor system brought down a missile over the southern city of Ashkelon.

Gaza Truce Holds into Second Day; Peace Talks Moving Forward

Palestinians want an end to the Israeli-Egyptian blockade on impoverished Gaza, and the release of prisoners.

(GAZA CITY) - A Gaza truce was holding on Wednesday as Egyptian mediators pursued talks with Israeli and Palestinian representatives on an enduring end to a war that has devastated the Hamas Islamist dominated 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.

Israel Announces Short Ceasefire as Death Toll Nears 2,000

As many as 3,000 Palestinian homes have been destroyed or damaged.

(GAZA CITY) - Israel said it would unilaterally hold fire in most of the Gaza Strip on Monday to facilitate the entry of humanitarian aid and allow some of the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians displaced by an almost four-week-old war to go back to home.

The announcement, made first to Palestinian media, met with suspicion from Gaza's dominant Hamas Islamists and followed unusually strong censure from Washington at the apparent Israeli shelling on Sunday of a U.N.-run shelter that killed 10 people.

Israel Says Hamas Will Pay Heavy Price for Soldiers Death

Israel said Palestinians on Saturday launched 86 rockets across the border.

(GAZA CITY) - Israel on Sunday declared dead a soldier feared abducted by Hamas Islamist militants in the Gaza Strip and said it would continue to fight even after the army completes destroying cross-border tunnels used by Palestinian fighters to attack its territory.

As Israeli television showed live footage of some tanks withdrawing from Gaza in an apparent winding down of the 26-day campaign, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Hamas would pay an "intolerable price" if it continued to attack Israel.

15 to 19 Dead After Israeli Artillery Attack on UN Refugee Camp

An Israeli military spokeswoman said militants had fired mortar bombs from the vicinity of the school and troops shot back in response. The incident was still being reviewed.

(JERUSALEM) - Israeli shelling killed at least 15 Palestinians sheltering in a school in Gaza's biggest refugee camp on Wednesday, the Health Ministry said, as Egyptian mediators prepared a revised proposal to try to halt more than three weeks of fighting.

Some 3,300 Palestinians, including many women and children, were taking refuge in the building in Jabalya refugee camp when it came under fire around dawn, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency said.

Battle in Gaza Hits Day 20 as Death Toll Passes 1,000

Rocket barrage fired toward southern and central Israel after cabinet agrees to extend humanitarian ceasefire.

(TEL AVIV) - An Israel Defense Forces soldier was killed early on Sunday by a mortar shell near the Gaza border as Israel's Operation Protective Edge entered its 20th day.

Hours earlier, Israel's security cabinet voted to extend a humanitarian cease-fire that began on Saturday morning until midnight Sunday.

Palestinians Pour Into Streets to Gather Food, Dead as Truce Holds

Israel's military pledged to hold fire for 12 hours but said it would carry on searching for tunnels used by militants.

(GAZA CITY) - Palestinians in the Gaza Strip poured into the streets on Saturday to recover their dead and stock up on food supplies after a 12-hour humanitarian truce agreed by Israel and Hamas took hold on the 19th day of their conflict.

Women in the northern town of Beit Hanoun wailed as medics pulled three dead relatives from a home struck overnight by an Israeli air strike, with hospital officials saying 85 bodies had been found after the guns fell silent at 1.00 a.m.

US Urges Ceasefire Between Israelis and Palestinians as Death Toll Climbs Over 800

The urgency was spurred on Thursday by the killing of 15 people as they sheltered at a U.N. run school in the northern Gaza Strip, which local officials blamed on Israeli shelling.

(JERUSALEM ) - U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry pressed regional leaders to nail down a Gaza ceasefire on Friday as the civilian death toll soared, and further violence loomed between Israelis and Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem.

With Israel and Hamas-led Islamist fighters setting seemingly irreconcilable terms for a truce that mediators hope will begin by a Muslim festival next week, Kerry worked the phones from Egypt, while aides made clear his patience was waning.

Violence Spills Over to West Bank; Death Toll Nears 800

Israeli troops have killed two other Palestinians this week in smaller confrontations in the West Bank, territory Israel captured along with Gaza in a 1967 war.

(WEST BANK ) - Israeli soldiers shot and killed three Palestinian protesters and wounded about 100 on Thursday in confrontations with several thousand people demonstrating in the occupied West Bank against a 17-day-old Israeli offensive in Gaza, Palestinian medical officials said.

The Israeli military confirmed troops had used “riot dispersal means” against protesters who threw rocks and firebombs at them and blocked a road with burning tires.