Egypt offered a cease-fire proposal to both Israel and Hamas, a Palestinian Islamic militant group, on Monday as conflicts were resulting in greater amounts of deaths of innocent people in the Gaza strip. In the past week, 186 Palestinian people were reported to be dead by Palestinian medical officials. No Israeli people were killed, thanks to the Iron Dome that Israel used to shoot down many of the attacks that Palestine attempted to make.
Egypt called on Israel and Hamas to meet all together on Tuesday to discuss the conditions of the ceasefire, and Egypt will have talks with both parties separately, according to the proposal text.
A Palestinian official said that “Hamas is desperate for a ceasefire. They have appealed to Qatar, Egypt and Turkey to help in reaching a new truce with Israel,” the Jerusalem Post reports.
The report further said that Ramadan Shalah, an Islamic Jihad leader, explained that they would agree to a new truce “with Israel if the ‘aggression’ on the Gaza Strip stopped and the border crossings are reopened.”
Although Israel’s conditions for a truce is not yet known, reports suggest that Israel also seems positive toward the proposal for a ceasefire.
Egypt had been a crucial mediator between Israel and Palestine in past conflicts, including in 2012 when they had mediated a truce between the two regions.
Other international leaders, such as U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and British foreign secretary William Hague, also have been pushing for a ceasefire. Kerry will be visiting Cairo on Tuesday to participate in the discussion about Gaza.
Although the U.S. has invested much to push for Israeli-Palestinian peace in the past year, the country “has seen no return on [its investment],” according to a report from The Guardian.
