A man makes coffee next to the ruins of his house, which was destroyed during the Israeli offensive, in the east of Gaza City yesterday.

AFP/Jerusalem

The European Union warned yesterday that violence could reignite in Gaza within “months” if Israel and Hamas fail to consolidate a fragile ceasefire through serious talks.

The EU ambassador to Israel, Lars Faaborg-Andersen, and John Gatt-Rutter, envoy to the West Bank and Gaza, spoke to journalists in Jerusalem just two weeks after a bloody and destructive conflict in the tiny coastal territory that killed more than 2,100 Palestinians and 73 people on the Israeli side.

“The destruction in Gaza has been devastating and we feel that if the situation goes unaddressed, there is still a considerable potential for violence,” Faaborg-Andersen warned, saying this could come “in a matter of months”.

The EU has pushed for indirect talks to resume between Israel and Hamas after the initial ceasefire was agreed on August 26.

“Hopefully it will be possible still to get the negotiations up and running very quickly,” he said.

Under terms of the truce, the parties agreed to resume Egyptian-brokered negotiations within a month to discuss key issues, including a Hamas demand for a port and an airport, a prisoner swap and Israel’s insistence on Gaza militants disarming.

Israel agreed as part of the initial ceasefire to immediately ease restrictions on the entry of goods, humanitarian aid and construction materials into Gaza, and to expand the fishing zone off Gaza to six nautical miles.

But Hamas has already indicated it intends to rearm, and Israel has said it will reject the port and airport demand.

Gatt-Rutter said the provision of EU aid would depend on how much progress is made in any negotiations.

“A number of conditions need to be met before we start to think about identifying the kind of funds that can actually have a real impact on the reconstruction” of Gaza, huge residential swathes of which were destroyed by Israeli bombardment, he said.

“It’s essential that we use the next four weeks to actually come to... understandings... that would allow us as the European Union to work together with our partners in identifying the kind of funds that can make a difference.”

The remarks came a month ahead of a donor conference on Gaza, and after the UN and the Palestinian government called for $551mn in aid to help hundreds of thousands of Gazans affected by the conflict’s aftermath.

Hamas’s exiled deputy leader said yesterday that the indirect talks with Israel are to resume in Cairo in mid-September.

Speaking to reporters in Gaza City during a visit from his base in Cairo, Mussa Abu Marzuq said it was “expected that the talks would resume in mid-September”.

“The Egyptians still have to give us the exact date,” Abu Marzuq said. 

In a bid to pin down a date, Egyptian negotiators visited Jerusalem and Ramallah last week, a senior member of the Palestine Liberation Organisation told Voice of Palestine radio yesterday.

“This was the aim of the Egyptian delegation’s visit to Ramallah and Israel. They spoke of resuming the negotiations in two weeks, between September 20-25,” said Bassem al-Salhi, who was part of the Palestinian team involved in truce talks. 

A senior Egyptian official said in Cairo that no date had been set for the negotiations to resume, but confirmed a “security delegation” had visited Ramallah, the West Bank political headquarters of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. 

Abu Marzuq said the Palestinians were “determined to resume the talks” and that he expected the same from Israel. 

There was no official comment from Israel on when the Cairo talks would resume.

Israeli army launches five criminal probes over war

AFP/Jerusalem

Israel’s army has launched five criminal investigations into incidents involving its forces during the Gaza war, a top legal official said yesterday, two weeks after a truce took hold.

The United Nations and international rights groups have condemned Israel for numerous attacks which resulted in heavy civilian casualties, in a conflict that killed more than 2,140 Palestinians. 

The army is already looking into five cases, with dozens of others pending investigation, a top army legal official told foreign journalists at the defence ministry in Tel Aviv, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Among the cases being investigated are the shelling on July 24 of a UN school in the northern town of Beit Hanoun that medics said killed at least 15 people, and the July 16 bombing of a Gaza City beach where four children died.

Both attacks were condemned by the UN and Israel ally Washington, although the US refrained from placing the blame squarely on Israel.

Other incidents being probed include the killing of a woman in southern Gaza after troops co-ordinated her exit from a combat zone, the alleged beating in detention of a prisoner, and the alleged theft of money by a soldier from a home.

The army was “committed to examining all credible allegations of misconduct”, the legal official said.

So far, the military has already dismissed seven other cases, two of which the official gave details on.

The first was an air strike that killed eight Al-Kaware family members on July 8, the first day of the war, and the second was a strike on a car the following day that reportedly killed a media worker.

“During armed conflict, the death of a civilian does not necessarily raise suspicion of misconduct, so when we receive complaints regarding these types of incidents... we need a more comprehensive factual understanding of the incident before we can decide whether to open a criminal investigation,” the official said.

But Israeli rights group B’Tselem said such investigations lacked credibility.

“There is currently no official body in Israel capable of conducting independent investigations of suspected violations of international humanitarian law,” B’Tselem said on its website.

The 50-day war between Israel and Hamas militants killed at least 2,143 Palestinians, nearly 70% of them civilians, and 73 on the Israeli side. 

The army had initially said 66 soldiers were among the dead but later corrected the number to 67. 

The Palestinians have threatened Israel with action at the International Criminal Court over war crimes allegations, and Hamas has signed a proposal for Palestinians to join the body, potentially opening itself up to investigation.