Representatives of various Palestinian factions in the Gaza Strip headed to Cairo on Tuesday for talks with Egyptian intelligence officials on the possibility of reaching a truce agreement with Israel, and ending the Hamas-Fatah power struggle.
After a two-day lull in violence along the Gaza Strip-Israel border, the Los Angeles Times quoted a senior Israeli official Monday as saying that a cease-fire agreement with Hamas, the Islamist organization that rules Gaza, is ‘virtually done.’
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held a clandestine meeting in May with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, according to a foreign diplomatic source.
After two days that saw the worst exchange of fire between Israel and Hamas since the 2014 war, a fragile truce prevailed Friday in Gaza, with no rocket attacks or airstrikes since an apparent ceasefire went into effect at midnight.
Senior Hamas officials who held talks with Egyptian intelligence officials in Cairo over the past three days were scheduled to arrive in the Gaza Strip Thursday to meet with party leaders, sources close to the Islamist movement said.
The United Nations envoy for Middle East peace met Sunday with Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry and other officials for talks on calming tensions between Israel and the Palestinians, relieving the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip and reviving the long-stalled peace process.
Hamas has accepted an Egyptian proposal to reconcile with Fatah and is awaiting a response from its rival Palestinian faction, senior Hamas officials said on Wednesday.
Israel’s political leadership has reportedly instructed the army to prepare for a military offensive in the Gaza Strip, to be initiated if the launching of incendiary devices from the Hamas-run coastal enclave into Israeli territory continues.
Egypt has invited senior Hamas officials to Cairo for talks on the continued tensions along the border between the Gaza Strip and Israel and ways of ending the dispute between the Islamist movement and the ruling Fatah faction in the West Bank.
French President Emmanuel Macron and President Trump on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Brussels have reportedly agreed on a plan to push Middle East allies Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan to start talks on way to put an end to Syria’s seven-year civil war.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met Saturday night for the second day in a row with US negotiators Jared Kushner and Jason Greenblatt, even as the Palestinian Authority continues to boycott the team and characterize them as ‘spokespeople for the Israeli occupation’ intent on normalizing ‘Israeli apartheid.’
US President Donald Trump’s adviser Jared Kushner and special envoy Jason Greenblatt are due to arrive in Israel on Friday which is the last stop on their Middle East tour aimed at promoting President Trump’s Israel-Palestinian peace plan as well as focusing on humanitarian aid to Gaza.
Christians coerced into an out-of-court settlement following an Islamist attack on a church building in Egypt recently saw the usual outcome – a closed church – a practice that has long oppressed Christians, according to Middle East observers.
Senior Trump administration officials will visit the Middle East next week to consult regional governments on their plan for Israeli-Palestinian peace.
The Saudi-led coalition battling Iranian-backed Houthi separatists in Yemen launched a long-awaited, high-risk campaign to break the back of the insurgency, with American military assistance, in a mass offensive against a key rebel stronghold in the country.
White House special adviser Jared Kushner and US Middle East envoy Jason Greenblatt will reportedly travel to Israel and other Middle East countries next week for talks with regional leaders on when to present a Trump administration peace plan, as well as to seek ideas on resolving the humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip.
Israel is pointing a finger at Iran for being behind the most serious escalation on it’s southern front in four years.
An ancient and much-debated fragment of the Gospel of Mark has been dated to the late second to early third century A.D., making it the oldest fragment of Mark ever found.
Israeli warplanes hit some 25 Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip late Tuesday and early Wednesday in a second wave of retaliatory strikes, the army said, as Palestinian terror groups continued to fire mortars and rockets into Israel.
Since April of this year, several Coptic Christian young women have recently been reported missing from various communities around Egypt in what World Watch Monitor calls a recurring phenomenon.