Last day of Gaza cease-fire

Israeli and Palestinian negotiators are meeting via Egyptian intelligence officials for their last day of talks before the current truce for fighting in the Gaza Strip ends at 2100 UTC Wednesday.

The negotiations started after a three-day truce brokered by Cairo on Sunday night. A similar truce collapsed last Friday after the Islamic militant group Hamas quickly resumed rocket fire with its expiration.

Speaking on the condition of anonymity, Palestinian officials told the Associated Press early Wednesday morning that Cairo proposed a deal which calls for easing parts of the Israeli blockade of Gaza.

However, it does not cover the key areas of disagreement, which include Hamas' demand for a full lifting of the blockade and Israeli calls for Hamas to disarm.

The talks, so far, have been described by negotiators as "difficult."

A return to fighting?

Israel withdrew from Gaza last week after announcing that its army had completed the main mission of destroying more than 30 tunnels dug by militants for cross-border attacks. Officials want guarantees that Hamas will not take supplies being used to reconstruct the smaller of the two Palestinian territories, flattened in a month of airstrikes and ground shelling by Israel, to rebuild those tunnels instead.

The month-long assault claimed the lives of 1,900 people, 75 percent of them civilians, according to the UN. Ground combat within Gaza left 64 Israeli soldiers dead. Three civilians died as a result of rockets fired from Gaza by militants.

Israel's airstrikes and shelling have displaced at least 425,000 of the Gaza Strip's 1.8 million people, according to the UN.

Following a July 23 vote, the UN Human Rights Council has appointed a commission to investigate possible war crimes committed by both sides during the conflict.

hc/lw (Reuters, AFP, AP)