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On Friday, US Secretary of State John Kerry said the a ceasefire deal for the conflict in Gaza has not been reached yet as he and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon urged for a week-long halt to the violence which has already caused the death of 848 Palestinians in 18 days .
At a joint conference with Ban in Cairo, Kerry, who has been spearheading international efforts to bring about a ceasefire, said that both sides “still have some terminology” to agree to before they can reach a ceasefire, and added that the two had a “fundamental framework” on a deal.
Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukri said that “both sides have not shown till now enough willingness to negotiate”. Like Kerry and Ban, Shoukri also called for a week-long humanitarian truce in the Palestinian enclave.
However, Hamas politburo member Ezzat al-Rashaq said that the Palestinian movement was evaluating the proposal for the week-long ceasefire. Kerry had said that he did not submit a formal truce proposal.
“They may have rejected some language in the proposal within the framework … but there was no formal proposal submitted from me”, he said.
Kerry added that he will go to Paris on Saturday and speak with the foreign ministers of Turkey and Qatar, the primary supporters of Hamas, in addition to top French and British diplomats.
On Friday, Israeli fire on the Gaza Strip killed a senior militant figure and a pregnant woman, emergency services said, bringing the total Palestinian death toll to 848 in 18 days of brutal conflict. According to emergency services spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra, surgeons had saved the life of the woman’s unborn child after an air strike hit a house in the town of Deir al-Balah in central Gaza.
In another air raid, Salah Hasanein, a senior spokesman for Islamic Jihad was killed along with his 15-year-old and his 12-year-old son in the city of Rafah, Qudra said. Islamic Jihad, one of the biggest militant groups in Gaza, confirmed their deaths.
