GAZA: Israeli and Palestinian negotiators have agreed to extend a ceasefire in Gaza for another 72 hours after failing to reach a long term agreement in Cairo-mediated talks, Palestinian and Egyptian officials said on Wednesday.
A previously agreed three-day truce was set to expire less than an hour afterwards, at midnight local time (2100 GMT).
“We have agreed to give more time for the negotiations,” Azzam al-Ahmed, head of the Palestinian delegation in Cairo said on Wednesday, saying the extra time would be a further 72 hours, the AFP news agency reported.
An Egyptian official said Israel also accepted the proposal. Israel had earlier said it would back an extension of the lull.
Earlier on Wednesday, Israeli police said a rocket from Gaza had landed in southern Israeli, hours before the truce was supposed to come to an end, the Reuters news agency reported. However, Hamas denied it was responsible for firing it.
Nearly 2,000 Palestinians have been killed since Israel launched its Gaza offensive on July 8 to halt cross-border rocket fire. On the Israeli side, 67 people have been killed, 64 of them soldiers. Agencies
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