All Blog Posts from World Watch

The Hamas leadership, along with other Islamic resistance groups, gave Israel a one-week ceasefire, during which it must withdraw all its forces from the Gaza Strip. In announcing the truce, Hamas said the Israelis' 22-day aggression had failed and bestowed the Jewish state no reason to reclaim victory.

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A Senior State Department official says the Memorandum of Understanding which Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni will sign today is "basically designed to cut off the re-arming of Hamas in Gaza."

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The Hamas leadership said on Wednesday it still has "certain reservations" over an Egyptian cease-fire plan, which calls for an immediate truce between Israel and the Islamic movement until an agreement is reached.

"We responded positively to the Egyptian initiative but there is still several specified points of differences and certain reservations. We hope that these points will be solved over the next few days to meet with the Palestinian national interests," a Hamas source, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told CBS News.

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After a week of negotiations, the U.N. Security Council voted 14-0, with a U.S. abstention, for a cease-fire in the embattled Gaza Strip. The U.S. abstained, and neither Israel nor Hamas is beholden to the agreement in New York.

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There is intense diplomatic activity and a glimmer of hope for an Israel-Hamas ceasefire at the U.N.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice scurried around the corridors of the U.N. from dawn until dusk with the French and British foreign ministers, staying well past her originally scheduled departure.

But, while there is support for a new Egyptian-French ceasefire proposal – the Egyptian foreign minister announced Thursday meetings in Cairo with Israel, Hamas and the Palestinian Authority – there is still a great divide on how to approach a ceasefire at the U.N.

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The U.N. Security Council emergency meeting did not produce a peace plan, but the French and Egyptian foreign ministers announced a new proposal for a temporary ceasefire in the embattled Gaza Strip and for the opening of border crossing – a proposal that appeared to be the result of negotiations with Hamas leaders in Syria and Egypt.

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CBS News correspondent Mark Phillips interviewed Israeli military analyst Alon Ben-David at the Israel-Gaza border. Following is a partial transcript of that interview.

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