JERUSALEM – U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry says he has not yet reached a deal between Israel and Hamas to call a 7-day humanitarian truce in the Gaza war but is continuing work.
Kerry’s comments at a Friday evening press conference in Cairo came after days of shuttling between the Egyptian capital, Jerusalem and the West Bank trying to work out a week-long truce. Israeli media say Israel’s Security Cabinet rejected the plan in its current form.
Kerry said a truce would provide seven days to work out further talks to address each side’s demands. He said some “terminology” on a truce’s framework still needed work.
“We don’t yet have that final framework, but none of us are stopping,” he said.
Meanwhile, Israel’s 18-day military operation in the Gaza Strip fueled new unrest in the West Bank, where five Palestinians were killed during protests.
Israel’s military announced that an Israeli soldier whom Hamas had claimed to have captured in Gaza earlier this week was in fact killed in battle that day. The capture of an Israeli soldier could have been a game changer in Israel-Hamas fighting and the international efforts to end it.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry met twice Friday in Cairo with U.N. chief Ban Ki-Moon and Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shukri to try to bring a week-long pause in the Israel-Hamas fighting, beginning as soon as this weekend.
Over the last week, in his travels from Cairo to Ramallah to Israel, Kerry has made clear that he wanted to secure at least a temporary pause in the violence before he returned to Washington. But U.S. efforts have been frustrated by deeply-ingrained hostilities between Israel and Palestinian officials and by mistrust among Mideast nations that have taken sides in the conflict even as they agree to push for a cease-fire.
The West Bank has become increasingly restive over Israel’s Gaza operation, in which more than 800 Palestinians were killed and more than 5,200 wounded since July 8, according to Palestinian health officials.
In the West Bank, protests against the Gaza operation operation erupted Friday in the northern village of Hawara, near the city of Nablus, and the southern village of Beit Omar, near the city of Hebron.
Palestinian hospital officials said three Palestinians were killed in Beit Omar and two in Hawara.
The mayor of Hawara, Mouin Idmeidi, said he and hundreds of others from the village participated in a protest after emerging from a local mosque.
On Thursday, thousands of Palestinians clashes with Israeli forces at a West Bank checkpoint and in east Jerusalem.
Associated Press writer Lara Jakes in Cairo and Mohammed Daraghmeh in the West Bank contributed to this report.
Hezbollah backs Gazans
BEIRUT – The leader of Lebanon’s Hezbollah group has vowed to support Palestinian militants battling Israeli troops in Gaza.
In his first remarks on the latest Israeli-Palestinian conflict that erupted on July 8, Hassan Nasrallah warned Israel that it’s “suicide” to continue waging war in the Gaza Strip.
Nasrallah says Hezbollah is closely following the Israel-Hamas fighting and that his followers will do “everything we can” to help the Palestinians. He did not elaborate.
Hezbollah has long been one of the closest allies of Hamas.
Nasrallah spoke on Friday during a rare public appearance before thousands of supporters in southern Beirut, marking “Al-Quds Day” a day of solidarity with Palestinians that Arabs traditionally observe on the last Friday of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
Al-Quds is Arabic for Jerusalem.
