Israel has agreed to extend a ceasefire that ended a month of fighting in Gaza beyond a Friday deadline, an Israeli official said on Wednesday, speaking on condition of anonymity.
“Israel accepted an unconditional 72-hour cease fire, and is willing to extend an unconditional cease-fire,” the official said.
The official did not say for how much longer Israel had agreed to extend the truce, only that: “Israel has expressed its readiness to extend the truce under its current terms,” referring to the deal brokered by Egyptthat took effect on Tuesday.
Cairo-based senior Hamas official Musa Abu Marzouk said in a Twitter post Wednesday night that “there is no agreement on an extension” of the Gaza truce.
A senior official with the Islamist group’s armed wing threatened earlier to quit the talks without progress towards achieving its demands to lift a Gaza blockade and free prisoners held by Israel.
Hamas also warned Wednesday night that it would resume its attacks on Israel unless Jerusalem accepts all Palestinian demands, first and foremost the lifting of the siege and release of prisoners who were rearrested in the West Bank.
Hamas official Izzat al-Risheq said, “We haven’t received a reply to our demands. Our fingers are still on the trigger.”
Chief of Staff Lieutenant-General Benny Gantz, has said in televised remarks that should Hamas disrupt the calm, “we will not hesitate to continue to use our force wherever necessary and with whatever force necessary to ensure the security of Israeli citizens near and far.”
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.
US envoy Frank Lowenstein was due in Cairo on Wednesday night to try to help Egyptian-mediated talks between Israel and the Palestinians find a lasting end to their conflict over the Gaza Strip, the US State Department said.
Lowenstein is the acting US special envoy for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.
“We, along with our partners, are working to find a way forward that brings an end to the violence and addresses the underlying causes of this crisis,” State Department spokesman Edgar Vasquez said in announcing the trip.
Herb Keinon and Khaled Abu Toameh contributed to this report.
The purpose of the ceasefires is to give Hamas time to reassemble their rocket making machinery, to get more weapons, to learn from their mistakes, to reassess which tunnels are still functional; to ratchet-up the media stories.
This war needed to be done switftly and decisively; could have been done in one week.
There has to be a Jewish self-destruct gene. Nothing else explains the relentless actions to fail in our own defense.
SHmuel HaLevi 2 Said:
I hope the Israeli leadership will use the current opportunity to destroy Hamas. Israel was forced to go to Cairo for the so called cease fire due to severe international pressure. The world knows more about terrorist Hamas now than before. Hamas chose death over life. It is good to give it to terrorist Hamas. They are the ones who made unrealistic demands. At this juncture, the world seems to pay more attention to ISIS than Gaza. Israel should use this to its advantage.
yamit82 Said:
Rectifried !!!!!!!!!!!!! TEXAS STYLE ! Sugar !!!!!!!!!!: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcW_Ygs6hm0
Aitzaz Said:
I think there is a quick easy way to be rid of you all. Hint!!! 😀
2 billion Muslims – 50% females =1 billion Muslim males= 70 billion virgins awaiting. That’s a lot of virgins. 😉 Good Luck!!! Really!!!
@ Aitzaz:
Aitzaz Said:
Ah, the old numbers game??? 🙂
Last time I looked there are more Hidus and Chinese than Muslims not to mention christians.
Eventually you will force a coalition of non Muslims and will be eradicated, at least enough so that what will be left of you, will begin as is the genetic consummate preoccupation of Muslims killing other Muslims (Some 12-13 million since the 1950’s.) A culture of death a worship of death and in the end you will all reap what you have sown. 😛
Aitzaz Said:
@ Aitzaz:
Look, al-tizzy,
Do you know what an ‘oxymoron’ is?
Ans: “a peaceful Muslim”
There is NO such thing!!!
Kindly explain to this kuffar exactly what is meant in 9:5 ??? Or 9:29
‘Peaceful’ eh? (SPIT!)
This whole cult of yours, was started by a pedophile, a murderer, a gigolo who
amounted to nothing, a COWARD !!!
And for YOU, this represents the al insan al Kamil …. ( VOMIT!!!!)
Why do you think that the rate of conversion to Islam is so high in prisons???
THIS IS A LICENSE TO LEGALIZE RAPISTS, PEDOPHILES, TORTURERS, MURDERERS, MYSOGYNISTS, AND THE REST OF THE SCUM OF THE EARTH.
ALL OF A SUDDEN THEY BECOME….’respected muslims’….
I would highly urge you to avail yourself of the following books, ackhhhmed, read, internalize and get out of this cult…
A god that hates. Wafa sultan
A guide to the kkkkoran …. Robert spencer (actually, make that ALL his works)
Why I am not a Muslim … IBn waraq
The rage and the pride … Oriana fallaci
@ Aitzaz:
No glory in razzing Jews, no satisfaction in empty threats.
No one loves you, no one cares , not even your own kind.
Your have failed in your mission.
Pathetically irrelevant.
You did it to yourself.
people sitting in my home and calling me irrelevant. hats off to this justice and fair play. This policy is called, “might is right” and soon will go reverse @ Max:
@ Aitzaz:
Irrelevant is as irrelevant does.
I am really surprised, that you guys naming me terrorist, taliban etc only because I am Muslim and I have a view point which does not match with your view point. this school of thought and philosophy is pushing majority of peaceful muslim around the world to A NEW RESISTANCE. Let me tell you statistically killing 2 billion people is not as easy as “rectifying” few million so called intellectuals. @ Max:
@ Aitzaz:
You are irrelevant here or anywhere. It is your sad self-made truth.
so you all endorsing that this kind of injustice and imbalance division of resources can bring harmony and peace. no doubt you guys living in fool’s paradise, how will you get rid of 2 BILLION people. you dont like them, but they are REALITY @ Max:
Aitzaz Said:
Aitzaz, if you and your Islamofascist buddies keep this up and try to destroy Israel, not only will the Palestinian Nazis not have a nation, but hundreds of millions of other Muslims will not have nations.
Because they will be dead, vaporized and obliterated by Israel’s nuclear arsenal.
And those who are not wiped out by the nuclear weapons will wish that they were, for they will have no edible food, no drinkable water, no law and order (well, much of the Islamic world does not have that now), no fuel, no medicine – nothing. How much longer could they live?
JOY – They choose “death by cop”
you can always trust a baboon to be a baboon.
light ’em up!