Gaza calm as truce takes hold after weeks of deadly shelling

Three-day ceasefire takes effect as talks in Cairo aim for a permanent deal to end Israeli strikes that have killed nearly 1,900 people in one month.

A woman surveys the rubble of her house in Beit Hanoun town on August 5, 2014, after a 72-hour ceasefire took effect in the Gaza Strip between Israel and Palestinian groups in the territory. Suhaib SaShow more

RAMALLAH // Israel and Hamas appeared to adhere to a temporary ceasefire that came into effect on Tuesday in Gaza, part of Egypt-brokered negotiations to end their month-long conflict that has killed nearly 2,000 people.

Residents of the Israeli-besieged territory took advantage of the 72-hour truce that began at 8am to shop or look for possessions and loved ones still buried under the rubble from neighbourhoods that Israel’s military flattened during its ferocious land and air campaign that began on July 8.

Israel withdrew its remaining ground troops from Gaza just before the shaky ceasefire took hold, saying that it had completed its mission of destroying the network of tunnels that Hamas fighters had used to infiltrate its territory.

Israel has billed its military actions as an attempt to stop Hamas fighters from firing rockets into its territory as well as an effort to neutralise the group’s tunnels. Coupled with a ground invasion that began on July 17, its military’s airstrikes, shelling and incursions laid waste to huge swathes of Gaza, killing nearly 1,900 people, injuring thousands more and likely inflicting billions of dollars worth of damage.

The Palestinian foreign minister, Riyad Al Maliki, threatened on Tuesday to lodge war crimes proceedings against Israel with the International Criminal Court (ICC). Now recognised as United Nations non-member observer state, Palestine could join the organisation.

Meeting with the body’s prosecutor in The Hague, Mr Al Maliki, also expressed willingness to allow the ICC to examine accusations of Palestinian war crimes – primarily the thousands of rockets that Hamas fired indiscriminately at Israel during this and previous conflicts.

Israel has warned it could bring such proceedings against the Palestinians, who also have been pressured by the United States and European countries not to join the ICC.

“If it entails action committed by Palestinian groups [against Israel], then we are ready to accept that,” said Mr Al Maliki. “But nothing compares to the atrocities, the carnage, committed by Israel.”

That was in part a reference to the large number of civilian causalities sustained in Israeli attacks, which destroyed entire neighbourhoods and killed entire families. The casualties and destruction surpassed that of Israel’s three-week war on Gaza that began in 2008, which killed some 1,400 Palestinians.

Citing evidence of war crimes, Amnesty International on Monday called on Washington to cease arming Israel and implored the Palestinians to join the ICC.

While the UN said some 75 per cent of those killed by Israel were civilians, Peter Lerner, an Israeli military spokesman, argued that figure was closer to 50 per cent. Citing Israeli military figures, he did not provide additional detail on how the causalities were calculated but added that Israel had achieved its goal of destroying tunnels.

Reconstruction of Gaza would likely figure prominently into the Egyptian-brokered talks to find a sustainable end to fighting, which endured despite several attempts by Egypt and the United States to broker truces.

Some details have been made public of the demands that the Palestinians have given Cairo, which has enraged Hamas by tightening Israel’s blockade on Gaza over the last year. Those include Hamas’s original demands for a ceasefire: lifting the Israeli blockade on Gaza and releasing Palestinian prisoners.

They also include an internationally backed reconstruction effort that would be heavily influenced by allies of the head of the Islamist group’s rival Fatah faction, Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority (PA) president.

One of those loyalists, Mohammed Mustafa, was involved in efforts to hold a donor conference in Norway to seek pledges to rebuild Gaza.

Mr Mustafa is the deputy prime minister in the interim Palestinian government that was formed in June as part of renewed reconciliation push between Fatah and Hamas. The effort also includes Tony Blair, the envoy for the so-called Middle East peace quartet of the United States, European Union, Russia and United Nations.

Hamas took over Gaza from Fatah forces in 2007, and the factions have been unable to fully heal their rift in large part because Hamas believes that Israeli occupation of Palestinian land must be met with violence.

Mr Abbas has abandoned armed resistance for peace talks with Israel that have failed over the last two decades to halt Israeli-settler expansion on territory wanted for a Palestinian state.

The participation of Abbas loyalists may signal strengthened Palestinian unity during the hostilities, which saw Hamas fighters put up stiff resistance against Israeli-troop incursions. Israel says 64 soldiers died in the fighting along with three civilians.

It may also be a sign of Hamas’s exhaustion from battling Israel as well as the group suffering from a financial crisis that began long before this round of hostilities with Israel began.

Either way, the gaps are wide between the Palestinian side and Israel, which is that Hamas disarm, something that the Islamist group, which officially calls for Israel’s destruction, would almost certainly oppose.

“For Israel the most important issue is the issue of demilitarisation. We must prevent Hamas from rearming, we must demilitarise the Gaza Strip,” said Mark Regev, an Israeli spokesman.

*Additional reporting by Reuters and the Associated Press