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Bumpy road ahead for truce deal in Gaza

(Xinhua)    20:43, July 22, 2014
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Palestinians inspect rubbles of Al-Farooq mosque destroyed in an Israeli airstrike in the southern Gaza Strip city of Rafah, on July 22, 2014. Israel's large-scale military operation against the Gaza Strip has left 576 Palestinians dead and around 3,600 others wounded. (Xinhua/Khaled Omar)

GAZA, July 22 -- Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza Strip on Tuesday morning killed 9 Palestinians and wounded 10 others, while death toll since the beginning of the Israeli large-scale military operation on the Gaza Strip hit 584 and 3,640 injured, medics said.

Gaza health ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qedra told reporters that Israeli war jets' missiles struck a house pre dawn in central Gaza Strip town of Deir el-Ballah, killing three people, including a woman and an 18-year-old girl and wounding four others from the same family.

He said that tanks of the Israeli army ground forces hit with shells a house in eastern Gaza Strip, killing a woman and her daughter, wounding ten other people, five of them were in serious conditions, adding another Palestinian young man was killed in an air strike in southern Gaza Strip.

"Also during the airstrikes, tanks shelling and naval vessels bombs, three more Palestinians were killed after midnight in central and southern Gaza Strip and in Gaza city's neighborhood of Zeitoon," said al-Qedra, adding "Israeli attacks and Palestinian casualties among civilians are still going on."

Witnesses and security officials said Israeli war jets raided on the house of Ziad Zaza, former deputy prime minister of Hamas government in the Gaza Strip, adding that the house in eastern Gaza city was completely destroyed. No injuries reported.

The report said that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas Tuesday received a phone call from U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry. The two discussed the results of the talks held in Qatar on Monday between Abbas and chief of Hamas movement Khaled Meshaal. They also talked about the possibilities of a ceasefire based on the Egyptian initiative, said the report.

After meeting with Meshaal in Doha, Abbas headed to Jordan, and then will travel to Saudi Arabia to hold talks with Saudi King Abdul Aziz, aiming at ending the endless Israeli attacks, according to the report.

A senior Palestinian official speaking on condition of anonymity told Xinhua that there are intensive Arab and international efforts to reach a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.

The official said that a ceasefire is not ripe yet, "but the intensive contacts and talks are still going on between the parties to reach a humanitarian ceasefire for two days or more under the patronage of the United Nations between Israel and Gaza factions."

The humanitarian ceasefire, according to the official, will help to evacuate the dead and wounded in the Gaza Strip, adding " the ceasefire will give more space of times for the parties to agree in details on an agreement that meets the Gaza factions' demands."

"If the parties reach an agreement, it will meet the demands of the Palestinians in Gaza to end over seven years of an Israeli blockade imposed on the Gaza Strip," said the official, who declined to give more details.

Azzam el-Ahmad, member of Abbas Fatah Party's central committee, who is currently in Cairo, told Xinhua on the phone that the consultations and discussions with Hamas movement on reaching a ceasefire agreement in the Gaza Strip "are still going on."

"So far, an agreement on ending the fighting in the Gaza Strip hasn't been reached," he said, but added "our consultations, contacts and talks on all levels are still going on."

Ihab Bseiso, a spokesman of the Palestinian unity government, told Xinhua that Cairo is witnessing an active movement to reach a ceasefire in Gaza, adding that UN chief Ban Ki-moon arrived in Cairo on Monday and his talks focused on "ceasing fire and ending the Israeli blockade imposed on the Gaza Strip."  

 

(Editor:Liang Jun、Bianji)

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