MEMO: Israel set out limited goals for Gaza truce talks on Sunday, saying the focus was on a proposal to ease its closure on the Islamist Hamas-controlled territory in return for the Palestinians calming their side of the frontier. The Israeli statement came hours before Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was due to convene his security cabinet to discuss, and possibly approve, U.N.- and Egyptian-brokered ideas for preventing another threatened Gaza war.
The United Nations and Egypt have not publicly detailed their proposals. They have spoken generally of a need to improve humanitarian conditions in Gaza, stem cross-border hostilities and reconcile Hamas – which refuses formal peacemaking with Israel – to its Western-backed Palestinian rivals.
Gaza, under years of grinding Israeli and Egyptian blockades aimed at isolating Hamas, has seen a surge in tensions since Palestinians launched weekly border protests on March 30, drawing Israeli army fire that has killed at least 157 people.
There have also been shelling exchanges between Hamas-led militants and Israel in which around 10 Palestinian gunmen and four civilians have died, Gaza sniper attacks that killed an Israeli soldier and wounded another, and wide-scale brushfires set in Israel by incendiary kites and helium balloons from Gaza.
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