A fresh five-day ceasefire has been agreed between Israel and Hamas, just as the previous three-day truce came to a close.
An extended truce appeared to be impossible in the final days of the last ceasefire and the gulf in demands between Israel and Hamas became increasingly apparent.
There were reports of violence overnight after reports of rockets fired into Israel and the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) responded with an air strike that illuminated the night sky in orange, but neither side reported any casualties.
However, just as the exchange was beginning to escalate, news came from Cairo that a further truce had been agreed, offering the opportunity for deeper discussions.
Israel is calling for the demilitarisation of Gaza and assurances that weapons will not be smuggled into the heavily populated area, while Hamas is demanding the end of the seven-year siege of Gaza by Israel and Egypt, which has caused such poverty amongst the Palestinian population.
Around 2,000 people have been killed, mostly Palestinian civilaisn, since Israel launched Operation Defensive Edge on 8 July. The operation came in the wake of a rise in extreme nationalism in Israel after the kidnap and murder to three Israeli teenagers in the West Bank.
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Israel has made itself into a militant racist theocracy/ethnocracy with ICBM nukes; a very real and rapidly increasing threat to itself and to the whole world. A pariah among nations. Justice demands resolution just as involuntary, disruptive and humiliating to Israel as Israel has wreaked upon occupied Palestine for generations. The Jewish State must be forced to recognize an armed Palestine with externally enforced autonomy, eviction of all settlers, true contiguity encompassing Gaza, the West Bank and Jerusalem together, neither pinched nor parceled, and pay crippling punitive reparations.
Ethnic cleansing (killing) is an abominable horror. ISIS is methodically cleansing Iraq’s Yazidi men, women, and children. America has reluctantly, but rightly, gone to war in Iraq against ISIS. For generations, Israel has, and continues methodically cleansing the citizens of the state of Palestine. With American money and attack Jets, the Jews kill, actually splatter, Palestinian men, women and children. America not only condones, but enables the racist Jew’s abominations with all the implements of war. How can this gross inconsistency be? Why ISIS and not Israel?