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U.S. President Barack Obama spoke with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Sunday evening, and stressed the need for an immediate and sustainable ceasefire in Gaza. “The President underscored the United States’ strong condemnation of Hamas’ rocket and tunnel attacks against Israel and reaffirmed Israel’s right to defend itself,” said a statement from the White House. “The President also reiterated the United States’ serious and growing concern about the rising number of Palestinian civilian deaths and the loss of Israeli lives, as well as the worsening humanitarian situation in Gaza,” it added. According to the statement, Obama “made clear the strategic...

GAZA CITY, Gaza — The militant group that rules the Gaza Strip asked for a cease-fire hours after Israel resumed attacks on the enclave. An Israeli army spokesman Lt. Col. Peter Lerner did not say if Israel would hold fire during, adding that troops would continue demolishing militant tunnels. And during an appearance on NBC's Meet The Press, Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Hamas had not kept to any ceasefire agreement. "We’ve accepted five ceasefires — Hamas has rejected every single one of them," he said. Artillery fire and air strikes punctuated Israel's earlier announcement that it would...

JERUSALEM — Israel’s top ministers decided Saturday night to extend a humanitarian halt to hostilities in the Gaza Strip for 24 hours, but said their troops would continue to operate to destroy tunnels from Gaza into its territory during Sunday’s pause. The decision came despite continued fire from Gaza into Israel during Israel’s initial four-hour extension of a 12-hour humanitarian pause on Saturday that both sides had agreed to at the request of the United Nations. Three mortars landed in open areas near Gaza just as the original lull was expiring at 8 p.m. Before midnight, more than a dozen...

US Secretary of State John Kerry informed Hamas via Qatar last week that under his proposal for a ceasefire with Israel, based on the original Egyptian initiative, the US would guarantee the fulfillment of many of Hamas’s demands for an end to the war, Palestinian sources told The Times of Israel on Saturday. Get The Times of Israel's Daily Edition by email and never miss our top stories Free Sign up! Kerry’s handling of the ceasefire effort was castigated by Israeli sources on Friday and Saturday, and the Israeli security cabinet unanimously rejected his ceasefire proposal on Friday night. The...

Militants resumed firings rockets into Israel from Gaza on Saturday, rejecting an extension to a ceasefire in a conflict in which more than 1,000 Palestinians, mostly civilians, have died. Israel had agreed to extend an initial 12-hour pause in the fighting by a further four hours but this was rejected by Islamist group Hamas, which dominates Gaza. Warning sirens sounded across the country as rockets were fired as far as the Tel Aviv area, police said. Israeli tank fire killed a man in the southern Gaza Strip, a local official said, announcing the first fatality after the breakdown of the...

News / Middle East US Official: Israel Declares 12-Hour Cease-fire in Gaza Saturday OA News Last updated on: July 25, 2014 3:19 PM A U.S. official says Israel has declared a 12-hour-long cease-fire in Gaza for Saturday. The pause in fighting would take effect 7:00 a.m. local time (0400 GMT).

Diplomatic-security cabinet "flatly rejects" American proposals for a week-long humanitarian halt to fighting, seeks changes to terms. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's security cabinet has rejected proposals for a cease-fire in the Gaza Strip and is seeking changes to the plans, a government source said on Friday. US Secretary of State John Kerry has been pushing for a halt to 18 days of fighting between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Full details of the proposed truce have not been released, but the government official, who declined to be named, said Israel wanted modifications before agreeing to any end to...

Hamas continues to be uncompromising in its position regarding an international cease-fire, AFP reports Wednesday. "We reject today and will reject in the future," Hamas leader-in-exile Khaled Meshaal insisted, in a public speech in Qatar. Meshaal insisted that Israel must accept his list of unprecedented conditions for a cease-fire - which included lifting several security measures, such as the naval blockade and border control, designed to prevent terrorists entering into Israel, as well as re-releasing terrorists arrested earlier this month - and only then will Hamas deliberate with Israel on a date for a cease-fire. Meshaal claimed that the terms...

Hamas and Egypt are at odds over an unconfirmed cease-fire deal with Israel, Walla! News reports Tuesday—after Cairo refused to add to the terms of its mediation unprecedented “conditions” tempering the move. Hamas, which has rejected not one, but three separate ceasefire attempts, called on Israel over the past week to submit to a number of “conditions”—or demands—in return for an end to the violence against Israelis. The calls were accompanied by threats against the Israeli people, made through a series of weakly-worded text messages. These “conditions” include, among other things, greater access to international waters, reopening of border crossings,...

Hamas agreed on Wednesday night to a temporary humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza, but not before firing another salvo of rockets towards Israel. "The group agrees to a ceasefire for five hours," starting from 10:00 a.m. local time Thursday, Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said in a statement quoted by the AFP news agency. "The Palestinian factions agreed to accept the offer from the United Nations for a cooling-down on the ground for five hours starting from 10 in the morning," he told the news agency. Shortly before 2:00 a.m. Thursday morning, however, sirens were heard in the Eshkol region, Hof...

The United States is doing "everything in our power" to achieve a ceasefire in Gaza, Secretary of State John Kerry said Wednesday, according to AFP. "Our concern is to have a legitimate ceasefire and see if we can find a way to stop the conflict and killing so we can get to the real issues that are underlying it," Kerry told reporters as he met his counterpart from Luxembourg. "And we're doing everything in our power," said Kerry, adding that he has been speaking to Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Arab officials. .....

Israel has accepted a request by UN envoy Robert Serry to enact a six-hour "humanitarian ceasefire" starting Thursday morning. Serry submitted the request to both the Israeli government and Hamas on Wednesday evening in order to allow humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip; while Israel accepted immediately, Hamas has yet to respond. It comes as efforts continue to broker a more long-term truce after Hamas rejected an Egyptian-brokered ceasefire agreement Tuesday morning, and responded by escalating its rocket fire against Israeli civilians. One Israeli man, 38-year-old father of three Dror Hanin, was killed in a mortar attack near the Erez...

Hamas rejected Egypt’s proposed ceasefire in Gaza on Monday night, as Arab foreign ministers in Cairo called on “all parties” to accept the proposal. Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said the group would not accept a truce without a fully-fledged deal to end hostilities, according to AFP. “A ceasefire without reaching an agreement is rejected. In times of war, you don’t cease fire and then negotiate,” he told the news agency. Barhoum added Hamas had not received any official proposal and that “the weapons of the resistance are a red line.” …

Egypt launched an initiative on Monday to halt fighting between Israel and Palestinian militants, proposing a ceasefire to be followed by talks in Cairo on settling the conflict in which Gaza authorities say more than 170 people have died. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will convene his decision-making security cabinet on Tuesday to discuss the proposal on the Gaza violence, an Israeli official said. [An] Israeli official seemed to put a positive face on the proposed truce, saying that Israel's week-old offensive in Gaza had weakened the Islamist Hamas group militarily. Two members of Netanyahu's security cabinet suggested a truce...

Nationalist Knesset Members expressed outrage on Monday night over Egypt’s proposal for a ceasefire in Gaza, which the Cabinet is to vote on early Tuesday morning. Diplomatic officials said that the Egyptian proposal would return the situation on the ground to the state it was before Operation Protective Edge, but with a Hamas that is much weaker than before. Officials close to Jewish Home Chairman Naftali Bennett said he would vote against the ceasefire. Housing Minister Uri Ariel (Jewish Home) told Channel 2 News that the ceasefire proposal is “very bad. I hope the reports are not correct and if...

Islamic Jihad leader says group would agree to truce with Israel if "aggression" on Gaza stops, border crossings reopened; official in Ramallah says Hamas has appeal to Qatar, Egypt and Turkey to help reach deal. The Palestinian Authority said Monday that the countdown for reaching a new ceasefire between Israel and Hamas has begun. “Hamas is desperate for a ceasefire,” a Palestinian official in Ramallah said. “They have appealed to Qatar, Egypt and Turkey to help in reaching a new truce with Israel.” The official claimed that Hamas has been under heavy pressure from Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, who...

Cease-fire proposals in wars between Israel and its neighbors are predictable: as soon as Israel is winning, the United Nations demands a cease-fire. As Dore Gold ably documents in his Tower of Babble: How the United Nations Has Fueled Global Chaos, cease-fires typically prevent a decisive end to the conflict. They have often guaranteed further war in the long run by providing a temporary calm that allows Israel's enemies to regroup. President Barack Obama offered Thursday to broker a cease-fire between Israel and the Palestinians--actually, the Hamas terror organization. That is one of the worst ideas, among many contenders, ever...

Ukraine's President has just under 20 minutes to extend the ceasefire agreement. Poroshenko is under heavy pressure from Moscow to do just that. But there is no sign that the ceasefire has worked, and as the deadline approaches, Ukraine's troops are on the move: The news website Obozrevatel reports that Poroshenko has declared martial law in Donetsk and Lugansk. It's not official yet, but it seems that the ceasefire is over and a new phase of the anti-terror operation (ATO) is just beginning.

DETAILS TO FOLLOW Borodai, the "Prime Minister" of the Donetsk Republic went on Television to announce this, which is apparently a result of the first talks between the rebels and Kiev, today in Donetsk.

Syria’s Deputy Foreign Minister, Faisal Mekdad, on Sunday asked the United Nations to take actions against Israel, claiming it violated the 1974 ceasefire agreement in the Golan Heights. According to Syria’s SANA news agency, Mekdad spoke with the Under-Secretary-General of the Department of Peacekeeping Operations, Hervé Ladsous, who is visiting Syria to inspect the status of the peacekeeping force in Syria. Mekdad reportedly cited Israel’s “direct ties with terrorist groups” and its attack in Syria in March. Syria uses the term “terrorists” when referring to the rebels fighting to oust President Bashar Al-Assad. .....