Official: Truce can continue

Speaking on condition of anonymity, an Israeli official told news agencies that the country was set to extend the ceasefire it has signed with Hamas beyond its Friday deadline. The official did not specify for how long.

"Israel has expressed its readiness to extend the truce under its current terms," the official told both news agencies Reuters and AFP on Wednesday.

However, Hamas' senior political leader based in Cairo, Moussa Abu Marzouk, wrote on Twitter that "there is no agreement" to prolong the ceasefire.

A month of airstrikes and shelling displaced over half a million people, about a third of Gaza's residents. The bombardment, which began June 8, killed 1,875 in Gaza, about 75 percent of them civilians.

Sixty-four Israeli soldiers died. Three noncombatants were killed by rockets fired from Gaza.

Border crossing reopening?

On Wednesday, a German diplomatic source told news agencies that German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier and his counterparts in France and England hoped to restore EU operations at Gaza's Rafah border crossing to Egypt. The EU halted the operation after Hamas took control of Gaza in 2007.

The EU Border Assistance Mission began monitoring the Rafah crossing in 2005. About 90 EU officers, including German federal police and customs agents, helped Palestinian guards keep weapons, explosives, cash and contraband out of Gaza. After the EU pullout, Egypt has repeatedly shut the Rafah border over the past year, significantly increasing pressure on Gazans, who already face a rigid land and sea blockade imposed by Israel following the takeover by Hamas. Egyptian leaders are currently hosting indirect talks between Palestinian and Israeli officials in Cairo.

On Wednesday, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Israelis and Palestinians had the right to live "free from fear." Ban also thanked staff working in Gaza for their bravery and sacrifice and said that the flag of the United Nations would fly at half-mast Thursday to honor colleagues killed when Israeli strikes hit UN-run schools in Gaza on July 24, July 31 and August 3. The secretary-general had already condemned those attacks on Sunday.

"The senseless cycle of suffering in Gaza and the West Bank, as well as in Israel, must end," Ban told the 193-nation assembly on Wednesday. "Do we have to continue like this?" he asked. "Build, destroy and build and destroy? We will build again, but this must be the last time to rebuild. This must stop now."

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israeli soldiers had not intentionally killed any civilians and put the blame for any deaths on Hamas. "Israel deeply regrets every civilian casualty, every single one," he said on Wednesday.

mkg/kms (Reuters, AFP, dpa, AP)