Gaza ceasefire expires

The ceasefire expired at 8 a.m. local time (0500 UTC), with no official statement from Hamas about whether they would extend the fragile truce.

Initial signs from militant officials were that the ceasefire would not be lengthened with the AP news agency reporting one senior Hamas as saying that Egypt had rejected the group's demands.

A leader of the smaller Islamic Jihad faction said that factions within Gaza had decided to end the ceasefire. The Reuters news agency reported one Hamas official as saying the group had yet to decide.

Within half-an-hour of the deadline expiring, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) said that five rockets had been fired into its territory, with one intercepted above the southern Israeli town of Ashkelon. The other missiles were said to have fallen in open territory nearby.

Before the ceasefire deadline, the IDF had said that two rockets, which it blamed on Hamas "terrorists," had landed in the south of the country and caused no injures. Hamas denied the accusation.

Egyptian officials have been brokering indirect talks between the Israelis and Palestinians with the aim of reaching a long-term ceasefire.

Israel 'open' to extension

Israel had earlier said it earlier it was willing to prolong the current truce with Hamas "indefinitely."

But a spokesman for Hamas' armed wing, Ezzedine al-Qassam Bridgades, warned hours before the expiration of the ceasefore that fighting would continue if their demands, chief of which is ending Israel's blockade of Gaza, were not met.

It also envisages a program of rebuilding in the war-damaged strip of land, as well as the opening of a commercial port. Since the Israeli offensive began a month ago, the Palestinian Health Ministry claims at least 1,886 people have been killed in Gaza and more than 9,800 injured. On the Israeli side, 64 soldiers and three civilians have died.

rc/av (AFP, AP, dpa, Reuters)