Gaza truce nears expiry

Indirect negotiations between Paelstinians and Israelis resumed on Wednesday, as diplomats sought to reach an agreement before the current ceasefire's end at midnight local time (2100 UTC).

The Cairo talks "are in a very sensitive stage and we hope to reach an agreement before the deadline," Palestinian delegation head Azzam al-Ahmad told the AFP news agency. According to Palestinian officials, Egypt had presented a proposal for a permanent truce that addressed a major Palestinian demand: the lifting of the Israeli and Egyptian blockades on the Gaza Strip. More space offshore for fishermen in the enclave is another issue under discussion.

The Palestinians are reportedly set to offer that the Gaza reconstruction mission be carried out by a unity government of technocrats set up in June by Hamas and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' more secular party, Fatah.

Israel is also seeking a commitment for Hamas and other militant groups in Gaza to disarm.

Egypt, acting as intermediary at the talks, brokered the current 72-hour halt in hostilities and had urged both sides to make every effort to reach "a comprehensive and permanent ceasefire" in Cairo.

More than 1,900 Palestinians, most of them civilians, have died since Israel launched airstrikes on the Gaza Strip on July 8; on the Israeli side, 64 soldiers and three civilians have been killed.

Italian cameraman killed in ordnance blast

In northern Gaza on Wednesday, five people were killed and six more injured in a blast as sappers tried to dismantle an unexploded Israeli missile. The Associated Press news agency said one of its cameramen, Italian Simone Camilli, was among the dead. Camilli, 35, was filming the engineers' efforts to dismantle the ordnance. An AP photographer, Hatem Moussa, was wounded in the explosion.

Italian Foreign Minister Federica Mogherini expressed sorrow in a statement issued from Rome.

"Simone Camilli's death is a tragedy for his family and for the country. Once more, a reporter pays the price for a war that has gone on for too long, and, for the second time in a few months, we weep for the death of someone who was courageously working as a reporter," she said. Italian photojournalist Andrea Rocchelli and his Russian interpreter, Andrei Mironov, were killed by mortar fire near the flashpoint city of Slovyansk in Ukraine on May 24.

Camilli is the first foreign reporter to die during the most recent fighting in Gaza.

msh/glb (AFP, AP, Reuters)