GAZA CITY – Israel and the Palestinians agreed to a fresh 72-hour ceasefire in Gaza Sunday, accepting an Egyptian invitation to resume talks to end fighting that has killed more than 2,000 people. The ceasefire deal, which was to come into effect at one minute past midnight (2101 GMT on Sunday), clinched days of frantic mediation to stem a firestorm of violence that resumed after an earlier truce collapsed on Friday.
WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. forces launched a second wave of air strikes against Islamic extremists near Arbil in northern Iraq on Friday, destroying a militant convoy and killing a mortar team, the Pentagon said.
Foreign Minister Manuel González repeated Costa Rica’s desire for an immediate ceasefire and urged the United Nations Security Council to take responsibility for ending the violence in the Gaza Strip, during a press conference at the Casa Amarilla Monday afternoon.
The strike on the school sheltering displaced Palestinians in the southern city of Rafah came as Israel pounded the region following the suspected capture of a soldier by militants, who was later declared dead.
BERLIN – Israel eavesdropped on U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry during doomed peace talks with the Palestinians last year, the German news weekly Der Spiegel reported Sunday.
In a joint statement, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said both sides in the conflict are sending delegations to Cairo for negotiations aimed at reaching a lasting cease-fire. During the 72-hour respite, Israel will not withdraw its forces from the Gaza Strip, a demand that Hamas had previously made as a prerequisite to peace talks.
Costa Rican Foreign Minister Manuel González met with Israeli Ambassador Avraham Haddad at the Casa Amarilla Wednesday afternoon to express outrage at ongoing violence in the Gaza Strip and its devastating toll on civilians. He urged the Israeli diplomat to push for an immediate ceasefire. The Foreign Ministry also said its ambassador to Israel would briefly return to Costa Rica.
Solís: "If the situation continues as it has, the world, not just Costa Rica, is going to have to take increasingly strong measure to protect the lives of the weakest who are being bulldozed by an attitude that does not agree with the values that the government of Costa Rica defends.”
The Gaza Health Ministry, run by Hamas, says that at least 70 Palestinians died in the Shijaiyah offensive, including at least 17 children and 14 women. Thirteen Israeli soldiers were also slain, seven of them when a mine blew up under their armored vehicle, military officials said.
All of them got on the Boeing 777: the world renowned AIDS researcher, the 77-year-old nun, the aspiring chemist who rowed crew for Indiana University – Dutch by birth but who showed her affection for her Midwest U.S. campus by once showing up to a costume party dressed as an ear of corn. A grandfather shepherding his three young grandchildren back to Australia. A 19-year-old U.S. citizen traveling to meet his family for a Malaysian vacation. Eighty children, three of them infants.
