Gaza truce talks near collapse?

Peace talks in Cairo appeared close to collapse overnight, as Palestinian representatives said they would leave Egypt on Sunday unless Israeli negotiators returned to the talks without conditions.

"We have a meeting tomorrow with Egyptian [mediators]. If we confirm that the Israeli delegation is placing conditions for its return, we will not accept any conditions," lead Palestinian negotiator Azzam al-Ahmad told the AFP news agency, issuing similar comments elsewhere.

A Hamas leader at the talks, Moussa Abu Marzouk, said that Israel was "stalling and the next 24 hours will decide the fate of the negotiations."

Israeli representatives were not expected at the talks for most of Saturday, owing to the religious holiday the Sabbath, but had said on Friday that they would not negotiate unless rocket fire out of Gaza stopped. The latest humanitarian truce brokered in Egypt collapsed on Friday with the resumption of rocket fire out of Gaza followed by Israeli airstrikes.

On Saturday, at least eight Palestinians were killed in more than 30 Israeli airstrikes on Gaza.

European trio urge truce

The foreign ministers of Britain, France and Germany on Saturday issued a joint statement appealing to both sides to halt the fighting.

"We call upon all parties immediately to return to a ceasefire. We fully support the ongoing efforts by Egypt to this end," Philip Hammond, Laurent Fabius and Frank-Walter Steinmeier said in a joint statement.

Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Malki, on a visit to the Colombian capital Bogota, on Saturday said that his government would seek an International Court of Justice war crimes probe at The Hague into the Israeli military campaign. "Before coming here, I was in The Hague and I asked the ICJ to start an official investigation, to see if what Israel has done in the past 33 days reaches the level of war crimes," Malki said.

Almost 2,000 Palestinians have been killed since Israel's military offensive in Gaza began on July 8, 67 people, almost all of them soldiers, have died on the Israeli side.

Large demos in Europe, smaller ones in US, Israel

In London on Saturday, tens of thousands turned out for a protest march in support of Gaza. The Palestinian Solidarity Campaign organizing the protest put turnout at 150,000 - but the city's police, who had issued markedly lower estimates for similar past rallies in London, declined to offer a figure. Diane Abbott, a prominent Labour back-bench MP for Hackney in London, was among several opposition politicians to attend.

A similar demonstration in Paris drew thousands. In New York, roughly 500 demonstrators marched on the United Nations in protest as well.

In the Israeli city Tel Aviv, more than 150 demonstrators defied a police ban to protest against the war, while another group organized a counter-protest nearby in favor of the military campaign. Police had said it was not safe to organize large gatherings in public in the city owing to Hamas rocket fire, but spokesman Micky Rosenfeld later said that nobody who ignored the orders had been arrested. Some rockets fired from Gaza have landed in or near the Israeli city.

msh/jr (AFP, AP, Reuters)