Israel approves 4-hour extension to Gaza cease-fire
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THE death toll in Gaza soared to more than 1,000 yesterday as bodies were pulled from the rubble during a 12-hour truce agreed between Israel and Hamas.
Later in the day, Israel’s security cabinet approved a four-hour extension to the cease-fire, prolonging the initial 12-hour truce until midnight, Israeli television reported yesterday.
Israel’s Channel 10 said the extension had been approved less than two hours before the temporary cease-fire was due to expire, and after US Secretary of State John Kerry and other international leaders called for a longer truce.
After the initial cease-fire went into effect at 5am GMT, medics began digging through the remains of hundreds of homes, and uncovered more than 100 bodies underneath, medics said.
These pushed the Palestinian toll in Gaza to more than 1,000 in Gaza.
Israel’s security cabinet on Friday night rejected a US proposal for a seven-day truce during which the two sides would negotiate a longer-term deal.
“We all call on parties to extend the humanitarian cease-fire,” France’s Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius told reporters after meeting Kerry and foreign ministers from Great Britain, Germany, Italy, Qatar and Turkey, as well as an EU representative.
“We all want to obtain a lasting cease-fire as quickly as possible that addresses both Israeli requirements in terms of security and Palestinian requirements in terms of socio-economic development.”
On the ground, Palestinian ambulances sped into neighborhoods that had been too dangerous to enter for days.
Palestinians ventured onto Gaza’s streets after the truce took effect, some eager to check homes they had fled, others to stock up on supplies.
In many places they found astonishing devastation: buildings levelled, entire blocks of homes completely wiped out by Israeli bombardment.
In northern Beit Hanun, even the hospital was badly damaged, and AFP correspondents came across the charred body of a paramedic as emergency workers searched for more dead.
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