Friday, 25 July 2014

WAR NEWS UPDATE: Cease-fire between Hamas, Israel starts

Israel-Hamas accept 12-hour cease-fire
Gaza (CNN) - A 12-hour humanitarian cease-fire between Israel and Hamas started Saturday morning while diplomats worked to create a longer truce in the conflict that has killed more than 900 people, mostly Palestinian civilians.

The cease-fire started at at 8 a.m. Saturday (1 a.m. ET). If the 12-hour cease-fire holds, Palestinians will be able to move medical supplies into Gaza and move out the injured and some of the dead bodies.

Israel Defense Forces says it will keep working to "locate and neutralize tunnels" being used by militants during the cease-fire and will respond with force if militants target Israeli civilians or soldiers.

A previous cease-fire backed by Egypt fell apart earlier this month. On Friday, Palestinian leaders called for a "day of rage" in response to the shelling of a United Nations shelter that killed 16 people in Gaza.

Palestinian Parliament Member Mustafa Barghouti told CNN that Hamas will comply with the terms of the temporary cease-fire.

"Of course, they will," Barghouti said during an interview that aired Friday on CNN's The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer. "Not only Hamas, but all Palestinians."

Kerry leads talks in Paris

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and other American diplomats are taking the lead in drafting an agreement with Israel and the Palestinians on a one-week humanitarian cease-fire that would start Sunday, several diplomatic sources told CNN on Friday.

CNN Mideast analyst Michael Owen told Blitzer that Israel rejected a seven-day cease-fire proposal because it doesn't want to give Hamas time to rearm itself.

More talks will take place Saturday in Paris. "We still have some more things to do over the course of ... 24 to 48 hours," Kerry said Friday.

The cease-fire talks are playing out against a backdrop of mounting casualties.

At least 883 people have been killed and more than 5,840 wounded since the start of an Israeli operation on Gaza, Gaza Health Ministry spokesman Dr. Ashraf Al Qidra said Friday.

An Israeli military representative said two soldiers were killed Friday in Gaza, bring the total number of soldiers killed to 37 since Operation Protective Edge started.

Casualties mount in West Bank

At least four Palestinians were killed in outbreaks of violence in several parts of the West Bank, according to medical sources.

A 23-year-old man was shot near Huwara village outside Nablus by Jewish settlers, a doctor at the Rafidia Hospital said. The circumstances of his death are unclear, but it led to clashes between protesters and the Israeli military in which another man was killed, medical sources said.

Two more men were killed during clashes with Israeli troops at a checkpoint north of Hebron in Beir Ummar in the West Bank, according to Palestinian medical sources.

The violent protests came after the U.N. shelter in Gaza was hit, killing 16 people and wounding a couple hundred more -- most of them women and children.

Video from the school showed chaos amid pools of blood. There were so many victims than many gurneys included two wounded children.

The bloodshed left the U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon exasperated.

"I am telling to the parties -- both Israelis and Hamas, Palestinians -- that it is morally wrong to kill your own people," Ban said. The "whole world has been watching, is watching with great concern. You must stop fighting and enter into dialogue."

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