Palestinian UN envoy hopes to see truce within hours

The Palestinian United Nations envoy says he hopes “a very intensive negotiation” in Cairo might produce a ceasefire “in the hours to come” between Israel and Hamas.

Ambassador Riyad Mansour says in an interview with The Associated Press — soon after Israel was reported to have launched a ground invasion into Gaza late Thursday — that it “would increase and compound the number of casualties to a very exponential level.”

He says Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas met with leaders from Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Egypt and other many others and he understands that US Secretary of State John Kerry was on his way to Egypt.

“We hope for an agreement and ceasefire to take place as quickly as possible before shedding the blood of one additional single Palestinian soul,” Mansour says.

— AP