Gaza ceasefire talks collapsed: Palestinian negotiator

Cairo: The temporary truce in the Gaza Strip has "collapsed" after the 24-hour respite ended on Tuesday midnight but no truce-extension agreement could be reached and Israel and Hamas renewed their hostilities, a Palestinian official said.

A 24-hour ceasefire agreement reached in Cairo between Israel and the Palestinians on Monday night was violated when unidentified militants fired rockets from the Gaza Strip into Israel Tuesday noon. Israeli war jets responded by striking the densely-populated enclave. Israeli Radio reported that the three rockets landed in an empty area near the southern Israeli city of Beer Sheba. The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) confirmed the attack.

"The ceasefire has collapsed and Israel is responsible," Xinhua quoted Azzam al-Ahmed, head of a joint-Palestinian delegation in Cairo attending in indirect negotiations with Israel as saying.

"We are leaving tomorrow, but we have not pulled out of negotiations," he said, adding the Palestinian team was waiting for the Israelis to respond to their truce proposal.

On Tuesday night, three Palestinians were killed including a child and a woman and around 40 wounded in renewed Israeli air strikes in the North West Gaza city, shortly before an end of a 24-hour ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, medics said.

But Hamas on Tuesday denied firing any rockets into Israel. Sami Abu Zuhri, Hamas spokesman in Gaza, said in an email press statement that Hamas wasn't responsible for the rockets fired earlier on Tuesday afternoon from Gaza. "The Israeli occupation is aiming through this escalation in the region to abort the talks in Cairo," Xinhua quoted Zuhri as saying. Senior Hamas leaders ruled out the possibility of reaching an agreement Tuesday.

In the Israeli military offensive launched against the Gaza strip, so far, around 2,018 Palestinians and 68 Israelis were killed and more than 10,000 wounded.