JERUSALEM -- A 12-hour humanitarian cease-fire in the Gaza Strip will start this morning, the Israeli military said Friday night, hours after U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said more work was needed to reach a deal between Israel and Hamas for a seven-day truce.
Earlier Friday, Israel's defense minister had warned that the military may soon broaden its ground operation "significantly" amid signs that the Gaza war was spilling over into the West Bank.
In a "Day of Rage," Palestinians across the West Bank, which had been relatively calm for years, staged protests against Israel's Gaza operation and the rising casualty toll there. At least six Palestinians in the West Bank were killed by Israeli fire, hospital officials said.
The Israeli military said in a statement that the lull would start today at 8 a.m. Jerusalem time and last for 12 hours. The statement warns that the military "shall respond if terrorists choose to exploit" the lull to attack Israeli troops "or fire at Israeli civilians." It also says that "operational activities to locate and neutralize tunnels in the Gaza Strip will continue."
A Hamas spokesman, Sami Abu Zuhri, said earlier Friday that the group had agreed to the 12-hour pause in fighting.
Kerry said mediators want the initial pause to build into a week-long truce for the Islamic Eid festival, an idea he said hasn't been made final. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu "has indicated his willingness to do that as a good-faith down payment to move forward," Kerry said in Cairo.
But experts said the humanitarian pause was unlikely to change the trajectory of the current hostilities. Israel wants more time to destroy Hamas military tunnels and rocket-launching sites in Gaza, while the territory's Hamas rulers want international guarantees that a Gaza border blockade will be lifted before they cease fire.
Susan Rice, President Barack Obama's national security adviser, said the 12-hour pause "would be a very modest initial step" and that "in some ways, I'm more skeptical of these very short cease-fires."
There have been earlier humanitarian pauses since the fighting escalated into a ground war July 8, for injured people to be moved or civilians to replenish supplies, but the fighting resumed each time, taking a toll on civilians in the area.
In Gaza, Israeli airstrikes and tank shelling have killed more than 860 Palestinians, wounded more than 5,700, displaced tens of thousands and destroyed hundreds of homes, Palestinian officials said. In dozens of cases, Israeli attacks killed three or more members of the same family, according to U.N. figures. Civilians make up three-quarters of the dead.
At the same time, Gaza militants have fired close to 2,500 rockets at Israel since July 8, exposing most of Israel's population to an indiscriminate threat that has killed three civilians. Thirty-six soldiers also have been killed in battle in Gaza.
Israel raised its death toll Friday after saying it had concluded that Staff Sgt. Oron Shaul, a soldier who had been missing in Gaza since Sunday, was killed in battle. The military wing of Hamas claimed to be holding him captive but did not offer any evidence or details of his condition.
Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon said Friday before the pause in fighting was announced that Israel's military would continue to strike Hamas hard to deter it from firing rockets at Israel in the future.
"At the end of the operation, Hamas will have to think very hard if it is worth it to taunt us in the future," Yaalon was quoted as telling soldiers manning an Iron Dome anti-missile battery. "You need to be ready for the possibility that very soon we will order the military to significantly broaden ground activity in Gaza."
"Hamas is paying a very heavy price and will pay an even heavier price," he said, according to a statement from his office.
a Truce 'concept'
Yaalon's warning came shortly after Kerry announced in Cairo that he had been unable to broker a week-long truce during which both sides were to talk about security arrangements and a possible easing of Gaza's border blockade.
For days, Kerry has been moving among the Egyptian capital, the West Bank and Jerusalem and talking to officials from Qatar who are in contact with Hamas. More meetings with his counterparts from European Union nations, Turkey and Qatar are scheduled for today in France.
Speaking alongside United Nations chief Ban Ki-moon and the Egyptian foreign minister, Kerry insisted there was a general agreement on the "concept" of a truce but that both sides had concerns over details of carrying it out.
"Gaps have been significantly narrowed," he said. "It can be achieved, if we work through some of the issues that are important for the parties."
However, the Israeli Security Cabinet rejected Kerry's proposal, according to Israeli media reports. Israel wants to be able to continue destroying tunnels used by Hamas militants to try to infiltrate into Israel and to smuggle weapons. It has so far uncovered 31 tunnels and destroyed half of them.
As the cease-fire efforts foundered, top Palestinian officials filed a complaint Friday against Israel at the International Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands.
Palestinian Justice Minister Saleem Al-Saqqa and Ismail Jabr, the Gaza court public prosecutor, started legal proceedings through a Paris-based lawyer, accusing Israel of war crimes, which, they say, under the court statutes includes "crime of apartheid," "attacks against civilians," "excessive loss of human life" and "crime of colonization."
If the legal complaint is accepted it could give the Palestinians the first realistic chance of lodging a war-crimes case against Israel.
To process the complaint, the court must first rule whether it has jurisdiction in the Palestinian Authority. The territory isn't a U.N. member but became an observer in 2012, a status the court's chief prosecutor said was required for Palestinians to sign up to the court.
Some experts said they don't expect the court to recognize the Palestinian proceedings.
"This is more of a symbolic thing. I'd be surprised if The Hague accepts the complaint. I can't see the ICC summoning up the Israeli leaders for evidence," said Mattia Toaldo, policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations.
"President [Mahmoud] Abbas gave assurances in 2012 to several countries that they would not use their U.N. status to go to the ICC," he added.
hospital struck
In Gaza on Friday, heavy Israeli shelling was reported in the town of Beit Hanoun, an area where ground troops are operating.
One shell hit near the emergency department of Beit Hanoun hospital, wounding six people, including a foreigner who was not identified, the Red Crescent said. Two of the wounded were in critical condition.
Shells also hit an ambulance in Beit Hanoun, killing a paramedic and wounding two people, the Red Crescent said. Another ambulance driver was killed as he tried to evacuate wounded from the southern town of Bani Suheila, the organization said.
As the Gaza fighting dragged on, the West Bank also was becoming increasingly restive, with protests breaking out across the territory Friday.
In the northern village of Hawara, hundreds took part in a protest after emerging from a mosque after Friday prayers, said Mayor Mouin Idmeidi. Hawara is along a main north-south thoroughfare that is also used by Israeli motorists, and one Israeli driver slowed down as he passed the march and fired at the group, the mayor said.
He said four people were wounded and that one of them, a 19-year-old, died at Rafidiyeh Hospital in Nablus.
After the shooting, clashes broke out between Palestinians and Israeli troops who opened fire, killing a 22-year-old, Idmeidi said. Health workers at the hospital confirmed the deaths.
An Israeli police spokesman, Mickey Rosenfeld, said paramilitary border police opened fire to disperse violent protests at Hawara and that masked Palestinians threw firebombs.
In Beit Omar, clashes also broke out between Israeli forces and Palestinian stone-throwers. Hebron hospital officials said three Palestinians were killed.
Later Friday, the Israeli military said a soldier opened fire and killed a Palestinian protester who attempted to snatch his weapon during clashes in a refugee camp near the city of Hebron. Palestinian police said the man was killed after scuffling with a soldier who had barred him from entering his home before the break of the Ramadan fast.
On Thursday, thousands of Palestinians clashed with Israeli forces at a West Bank checkpoint and in east Jerusalem, the largest protests in those areas in several years.
Hezbollah warning
Elsewhere on Friday, the leader of Lebanon's militant Hezbollah group vowed to support the Palestinian militants battling Israeli troops. In his first remarks on the fighting, Hassan Nasrallah warned Israel that it would be "suicide" to continue waging war in the Gaza Strip.
Hezbollah, a Shiite group, has long been one of the closest allies of Hamas. Both militant groups are backed by Iran.
But relations between Hamas and Hezbollah soured after the uprising against President Bashar Assad's rule in Syria, which began in March 2011, became an insurgency waged by mostly Sunni rebels and later descended into full-blown civil war.
Hamas' leader Khaled Mashaal shuttered Hamas' Damascus offices and now spends most of his time in Qatar, the tiny Persian Gulf Arab country that has strongly backed the rebels battling to overthrow Assad. Hezbollah, meanwhile, is heavily engaged in fighting alongside Assad's forces in Syria.
On Friday, Nasrallah called for putting all disputes aside in support of Gaza.
He said Hezbollah is closely following the Israel-Hamas fighting and that his followers will do all they can to help the Palestinians. He did not elaborate.
"From here I say to our brothers in Gaza: We are with you and beside you and confident of your steadfastness and your victory and we will do everything we can to support you," he said.
Information for this article was contributed by Karin Laub, Ian Deitch, Mohammed Daraghmeh, Yousur Alhlou, Edith M. Lederer, Zeina Karam, Thomas Adamson and staff members of The Associated Press; by Sangwon Yoon, Tal Barak Harif, Alisa Odenheimer, Caroline Alexander, Nadeem Hamid, Angela Greiling Keane and Jonathan Ferziger of Bloomberg News; and by Isabel Kershner, Said Ghazali and staff members of The New York Times.
A Section on 07/26/2014