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On Wednesday, A Hamas official was in Cairo to hold talks with Egypt to end the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian movement that has left Gaza crippled. Hamas was not a part of the discussion during Tuesday’s truce deal, which it promptly later rejected as the deal had none of the concessions it had earlier asked for.
“A meeting will be held this afternoon between an official from Hamas and a representative of the Egyptian leadership”, senior member of Fatah Azzam al-Ahmad said. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who belongs to the Fatah movement, is all set to arrive in Cairo later and join diplomatic efforts to bring an end to the conflict which has so far killed 213 people in nine days.
Ahmad said that he hoped talks in Cairo would “crystalize a definite formula for an Egyptian initiative” or clarify the Egyptian plan. Israel had initially accepted the ceasefire put forth by Egypt at 0600 GMT on Tuesday, but later launched scores of air strikes at Gaza.
Meanwhile, Middle East peace Quartet envoy Tony Blair spoke about the Gaza conflict with EgyptianForeign Minister Sameh Shoukri and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi during his second trip to Egypt in the past week. Blair said that the Egyptian initiative was designed “to allow all the issues that are at the heart of this problem … to be dealt with in a thorough and proper way”.
“There are demands by Hamas in respect of Gaza and there are demands by Israel in respect of security.But the purpose of this initiative is to allow people to come and discuss those issues, but in the meantime for the violence to stop and for the lives of the innocent to be saved”, Blair said in the joint press conference with Shoukri.
Shoukri added that the Egyptian proposal was aimed at “stopping military actions in order to address the situation in Gaza in the medium and long terms, and to give an opportunity to resume the peace process”.