Talks in Cairo on hold as Israel says no negotiations with rocket fire from Gaza
JERUSALEM — Egyptian-brokered talks between Israel and Hamas on a new border deal for Gaza were thrown into doubt Saturday after senior officials said an Israeli team would not rejoin negotiations in Cairo unless rocket fire from Gaza stops.
A day after the end of a temporary truce, cross-border attacks continued Saturday, though at a lower intensity than on most days in the past month of fighting.
Gaza militants fired 28 rockets at Israel, the army said, while Israel struck about 50 targets in Gaza that it said were linked to militants, including mosques and homes.
The indirect talks in Cairo — which began earlier in the week with Egyptians shuttling between the Israeli and Palestinian delegations — were meant to produce a sustainable cease-fire and new border arrangements for Gaza.
Israel and Egypt have severely restricted trade and movement in and out of Gaza since the Islamic militant Hamas seized the territory by force seven years ago.
Donetsk rebels say city is surrounded, want cease-fire to avoid ‘catastrophe’
DONETSK, Ukraine — Ukraine’s rebels are surrounded and ready to agree to a cease-fire to prevent a “humanitarian catastrophe,” the insurgents’ new leader said Saturday as conditions deteriorated in the rebel stronghold of Donetsk, artillery thundering through deserted streets.
There was no immediate government response to the cease-fire statement. Ukrainian troops have made steady advances against the rebels in recent weeks.
“We are prepared to stop firing to bar the spread of the scale of the humanitarian catastrophe in Donbass (eastern Ukraine),” Aleksandr Zakharchenko, the so-called prime minister of the Donetsk separatists, said in a statement on a rebel website.
His motive for offering a cease-fire was not clear but his comments could be aimed at increasing the pressure on Ukraine to allow in a Russian aid mission.
By wire sources