Arab foreign ministers to meet Monday on Gaza — diplomat

By AFP - Jul 12,2014 - Last updated at Jul 12,2014

CAIRO — Arab foreign ministers are to meet in Cairo on Monday to discuss the escalating conflict between Hamas fighters in Gaza and Israel which has already killed 135 Palestinians, a diplomat said.

Kuwait, which holds the rotating leadership of the Arab League headquartered in the Egyptian capital, had demanded the “urgent” meeting, the diplomat told AFP on Saturday.

There has been no coordinated Arab response to the conflict which erupted on Tuesday when Israel launched waves of air strikes against Gaza aimed at halting rocket fire across the border.

Egypt, the traditional broker in Israeli-Hamas conflicts, said Friday its efforts to halt violence in the Gaza Strip had met with “stubbornness”.

But it is seen as having taken a step back from the latest round of fighting.

Its new government has been opposed to Hamas, the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood which the military ousted from power last year.

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Israel says three confess to revenge slaying of Palestinian

Jul 14,2014

Three Israeli Jews arrested for the murder of a Palestinian teenager have confessed to abducting him and burning him alive, officials said on Monday, an incident that helped trigger a week of Israeli-Hamas fighting around the Gaza Strip.