Israel accepts Egyptian truce

The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday that the cabinet had accepted an Egyptian proposal for a truce minutes before the plan was to go into effect at 9 a.m. local time (0600 UTC).

The proposal calls for a ceasefire to begin within 12 hours of "unconditional acceptance" by both sides, followed by the opening of Gaza's border crossings and talks in Cairo within two days.

The armed wing of the Palestinian Islamist Hamas movement, however, seemed to reject the Egyptian plan, saying it was tantamount to surrender.

In a statement issued on Tuesday, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades called the proposal "an initiative of kneeling of submission."

"No official or unofficial side has approached us about the ceasefire talked about in the media... (but) if the contents of this proposal are true, it is a surrender and we reject it outright," the statement said.

The statement vowed that rocket attacks from Gaza would "increase in ferocity and intensity."

Both the United States and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who is based in the West Bank, have backed the Egyptian plan.

Civilian deaths

The truce proposal aims to end seven days of conflict in which Israel has flown hundreds of airstrikes on the Gaza Strip in response to rocket fire from Palestinian militants.

At least 186 Palestinians, most of them civilians, have died in the violence, while some 17,000 have fled their homes, particularly in northern Gaza.

So far, no Israeli deaths have been reported, largely owing to Israel's Iron Dome anti-missile systems.

Israel has mobilized tens of thousands of troops for a threatened ground invasion of the Gaza Strip, but so far no such attack seems imminent.

tj/msh (Reuters, AP)