JERUSALEM // Israel rejected a proposal for a temporary truce by the US secretary of state John Kerry on Friday, dashing hopes for a quick end to a Gaza conflict that has killed almost 850 Palestinians.
International efforts for a humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza ramped up earlier, as tensions also erupted in the West Bank where five Palestinians were killed by Israeli gunfire.
Israel’s Channel 1 reported late on Friday, ahead of a scheduled announcement by Mr Kerry, that the security cabinet of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had “unanimously rejected” a truce proposal by Mr Kerry.
Mr Kerry, who has been leading international efforts to reach a truce, said at a press conference in Cairo with UN chief Ban Ki-moon that both sides “still have some terminology” to agree to on a ceasefire, but added they had “fundamental framework” on a truce.
The United States has worked with Egypt on a plan that, diplomats say, would provide a humanitarian pause in the deadly Israel-Hamas conflict ahead of talks on key issues.
The conflict, which began July 8 when Israel launched an operation to stamp out rocket fire from Gaza and destroy Hamas tunnels, has claimed 848 Palestinian lives, most of them civilians, plus 35 Israeli soldiers, two Israeli civilians and a Thai migrant worker.
In a statement released by his office, Ban called for “an immediate, unconditional humanitarian pause in the fighting in Gaza and Israel”.
“This pause would last through the Eid Al Fitr holiday period,” Ban said, adding that a halt in the fighting could lead to a “longer-term ceasefire plan”.
His comments tracked reports from western and Palestinian officials of efforts to secure an initial week-long humanitarian ceasefire to be followed by negotiations on a longer-term cessation of hostilities.
TheTurkish foreign minister Ahmet Davutoglu flew to Qatar on Friday to help efforts after Mr Kerry reached out to Hamas allies Ankara and Doha to push for a ceasefire.
Under the proposal, once a humanitarian lull takes hold, delegations from Israel and Hamas would arrive in Cairo – which has mediated past conflicts between the two – for indirect talks that could lead to a lasting deal.
Senior Hamas official Izzat al-Rishq said late on Friday on his Facebook page that the group was “studying” the humanitarian truce idea.
Hamas’s exiled Doha-based leader Khaled Meshaal insisted in an interview on Thursday with the BBC that any truce must include a guaranteed end to Israel’s eight-year blockade of Gaza.
Meanwhile, in the West Bank, tensions over the situation in Gaza erupted into protests in several cities after Friday prayers.
Overnight, one Palestinian was killed and 150 injured in clashes in the West Bank, and on Friday afternoon, five more Palestinians were shot dead by Israeli troops and settlers, three near the southern city of Hebron and two in the north near Nablus.
In Gaza, the death toll rose to at least 848 on the 18th day of the conflict, with a five-year-old child and a pregnant woman among the dead, according to an emergency services spokesman.
On Thursday, at least 15 people were killed in the alleged Israeli shelling of a UN school sheltering some of the 100,000 Palestinians who have fled their homes during fighting.
The UN said it had been trying to coordinate with the army to evacuate civilians before the strike, without success, but the army said it had offered a humanitarian window, and that militants firing rockets in the area were responsible for the deaths.
Rights groups say about 80 percent of the casualties so far have been civilians, and the UN agency for children UNICEF said on Friday that 192 children had been killed during the conflict.
In Lebanon, another Israeli foe, Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah, made a rare public appearance in Beirut, preaching “solidarity with the people and the resistance in Gaza”.
The Israeli army on Friday announced the death of a 36-year-old reserve soldier and another 21-year-old staff sergeant.
The staff sergeant was killed in a mortar and anti-tank barrage fired by militants from near the UN school hit the day before, the army said.
The deaths brought the toll of soldiers and officers killed in Gaza since July 8 to 35.
Three civilians have been killed inside Israel, by rocket fire from Gaza, which continued on Friday.
The army said militants fired 25 rockets which hit southern Israel with another 10 intercepted, bringing the number of rockets and mortar rounds from Gaza that hit Israel since July 8 to 1,870, with another 473 intercepted.
Israeli naval guns were heard shelling the narrow coastal territory late on Friday night.
* Agence France-Presse