Israel, militants begin indirect talks on truce details

A Palestinian schoolgirl is seen through a hole in a blackboard Monday, Nov. 26, 2012, days after an Israeli strike hit a school in Gaza City. / AP Photo/Adel Hana

Last Updated 4:57 p.m. ET

JERUSALEM Israel and Palestinian militants from the Gaza Strip began indirect talks Monday in Egypt aimed at forging a new era of relations between the bitter enemies following a cease-fire that ended the heaviest fighting in nearly four years.

The talks, being mediated by Egypt, were the first negotiations since the cease-fire took effect last Wednesday, halting eight days of airstrikes targeting militant groups in the Palestinian territory and rocket attacks that reached deep into Israel.

Israel launched some 1,500 airstrikes in a bid to end rocket attacks out of Gaza, while the Hamas and the Islamic Jihad militant groups fired a similar number of rockets at Israeli cities. More than 160 Palestinians, including dozens of civilians were killed. Palestinian attacks killed six Israelis, including four civilians and two soldiers.

Now that fighting has subsided, Egypt is working with the sides on carrying out the second phase of the agreement: negotiating new border arrangements for the impoverished coastal strip.

Palestinians gather along the Israeli-Gaza border fence in east of Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, Friday, Nov. 23, 2012. The crowd - many returning to their farm land - surged toward Israel's border fence with the Hamas-ruled territory to test new agreements mediated by the Egyptians between Hamas and Israel that led to a cease-fire after eight days of cross-bordering fighting. One Palestinian was killed and 19 injured.

/ AP Photo/Bernat Armangue

The negotiations will not be simple. The militants want Israel to lift what remains of its blockade of Gaza, imposed five years ago after Hamas seized control of the territory from its Western-backed rival Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. While Israel has eased the blockade in recent years, key restrictions remain in place on exports out of Gaza and the entry of badly needed building materials into the territory.

The Palestinians are hopeful that Egypt's new Islamist government will ease its own restrictions on movement in and out of the territory. Egypt still limits foot traffic through the Rafah border crossing. The militants also hope to turn the Rafah terminal into a major cargo crossing.

In return, Israel wants an end to arms smuggling into Gaza. Iranian-made weapons have made their way into Gaza through a circuitous route that ends with underground tunnels along the Egyptian border.

An Israeli official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the negotiations with the media, said Israel is prepared to take steps to help Gaza's civilians but would be wary of doing anything that could strengthen Hamas. In particular, he said the issue of arms smuggling would be high on the agenda.

"Our assessment is that successfully preventing the rearmament of Hamas and other groups is an integral element of maintaining long-term peace and quiet," the official said.

• Gaza cleric: Violating truce would be a sin
• Unrest in Egypt, after Gaza Crisis: Obama's choices in the Middle East
• Israel eases Gaza border restrictions after truce
• Cease-fire holds as both Hamas and Israel claim victory, but real work lies ahead

Yasser Othman, Egypt's top diplomat in the West Bank, confirmed the talks had begun.

Ghazi Hamad, a Hamas official in Gaza, said the group's economics minister, Ziad al-Zaza, was leading the Palestinian delegation. He gave no further details, and it was unclear whether any timeline was imposed for implementing the deal.

But militant leaders already have said they will not give up the vast arsenals they have accumulated. In the recent fighting, Hamas and Islamic Jihad unveiled new rockets capable of striking deep into the Israeli heartland, in addition to anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons.

In an interview Monday, Islamic Jihad leader Ramadan Shallah said Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called him and Hamas' prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh, to offer congratulations after their battle with Israel.

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[Rick_Carter1]

My recommendation - End the blockade completely, allow the Palestinians to import whatever they want (including the rope to hang themselves with), but set up an international legal gallows at the same time by relying upon a future truce agreement which imposes very severe monetary penalties for any violations by either side, to be paid to the side within a reasonable time who was the target of these violations, or else by confiscated land of equal value if the funds are not forthcoming. - RC

[Rick_Carter1]

(The offended party gets the choice of land.) - RC

[Rick_Carter1]

(And (within existing international reason) what they want to do with this land, too.) - RC

[Biggest_Lew]

Anyone else notice the consistency of the message and style of presentation, of the bigots here?

I think there's ONE ugly and ignorant person behind all this rubbish.

Look at the tactics: Copy & pastes of bigoted diatribes from anti-Jewish sources, magically vanishing from the conversation whenever the discussion gets on tenuous ground for them - only to reappear on another thread with a different bigoted point, childish ad-hominem attacks in response to valid points, cowardice in the face of logic, refusal to credit ANY source which does not back up IT'S point...

Folks, there's no sense trying to talk to anything so full of hate. Hatred overrules logic and intelligence every time.

Starve the troll!

[Justicechamp]

Israel has no right to exist on land it stole from other people. It's as simple as that. the Conflict is no more complicated than any other armed robbery.

From a religious perspective, Israel is an abomination also.

Google: To Whom Does The Land Of Palestine Belong? by Pastor Thomas Williamson

...and check oth the website of TRUE TORAH JEWS Against Zionism

[Biggest_Lew]

Chuck, notice the pig-pile responses? What might that suggest?

[Justicechamp]

Suggested reads by Jewish scholars: (Google these.)

The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, by Historian iLan Pappe

The Invention of the Jewish People by Professor (Tel Aviv University, Israel) Shlomo Sand

Also read and article by Alan Hart, close friend of former Israel Prime Minister Golda Meir:
Israel IS Illegitimate

Alan Hart has also written a series of books entitled:
Aionism The Real Enemy Of The Jews. Google it for reviews.

David Evans Former Sergeant USMC
Veterans For Peace Member
Palestine and Middle East Working Group

[Justicechamp]

The Headline of this article has a misplaced comma inserted, as it should read, "Israel militants begin talks on truce deals" Israel is the aggressor. Its US-armed militant forces fly warplanes helicopters and drones over Gaza's skies regularly firing missiles and dropping bombs and other munitions, including white phosphorous, into Palestinian neighborhoods and homes.

Israel's terrorist squads and armies invaded Palestine 6 decades ago. Nearly a million Palestinians who had lived in peace for millennia (except when forced to resist invading hordes of Christian Crusaders) were chased from their homes in 1948after they were disarmed by British forces, as Israel, without following UN established protocol, spawned itself on their lands. And Israel has been relentlessly expanding ever since.

This, despite the lies told by Israel's propagandists and repeated by Zionist-owned US media, and nothing else, is the reason for the Conflict.

Google: Palestinian Loss Of Land Map Veterans Today for a visual.

Israel is the aggressor. Palestinians are resisting that aggression. Their rockets that media blathers incessantly about, fired in defiance from behind their prison walls of gaza have killed about 30 Israelis in 22 years. One Israeli bomb dropped on Gaza's trapped people often kills or maims more Palestinian men, women and children, but media will never tell you that more Israelis die in traffic accidents every 22 days than have died by Palestinian rocket fire in 22 years.

Google the maps above and judge for yourself which side is just.

[Biggest_Lew]

Wow - Justice (really?) hands off to spinner (bigot)!

Ooooh - SACKED at it's own 5 yard line!

LOL!

[Biggest_Lew]

Wow - Justice (really?) hands off to spinner (bigot)!

Ooooh - SACKED at it's own 5 yard line!

LOL!

[tsigili]

If Egypt allows weapons to flow into Gaza, from Egypt, there will be no peace deal possible.