Hamas, PA delegates in Cairo for truce talks

A Hamas team arrives in Cairo on Sunday for talks with Egyptian mediators on a possible truce in Gaza, an airport official and state news agency MENA said.

The delegation is led by senior Hamas official Ezzat al-Rishq, the sources say.

Egypt, the traditional broker in conflicts between Israel and Hamas, invited Israeli and Palestinian negotiators to gather in Cairo to thrash out a durable truce in Gaza based on an Egyptian ceasefire proposal.

Israel, after initially agreeing to multiple international truce attempts, says it will not send anyone to the latest talks after the last agreed-upon ceasefire collapsed when Hamas attacked an IDF force attempting to destroy a Hamas tunnel in Rafah on Friday.

“Hamas has proven that it breaches any agreement reached right away, as happened five times in previous truces,” Israel’s deputy foreign minister Tzachi Hanegbi told AFP on Saturday.

“It is therefore unclear at this stage what benefit Israel might see for participating in an attempt to reach agreements, based on the Egyptian initiative.”

Another Palestinian team, including the Palestinian Authority’s spy chief Majid Faraj, arrived late on Saturday for the negotiations, which are expected to start later today.

Representatives of Islamic Jihad are also expected in the Egyptian capital, as are US Middle East envoy Frank Lowenstein and the Middle East Quartet’s peace envoy Tony Blair.

— AFP and Times of Israel staff