Region

GAZA — After hours casting their nets close to the Gaza shore, Palestinian fishermen sift through their catch in the dim dawn light, managing to scrape together a few piles of limp fish.

It’s a miserable catch, the result they say of restrictions imposed by Israel, with their boats allowed only three nautical miles (5.6 km) offshore, following a month of no fishing at all during the recent fighting.

For years Gaza’s fishing community — once one of its proudest and most productive industries — has been caught in the middle of a maritime feud, part of a wider conflict between the blockaded Palestinian enclave and Israel.

Israel shut down the waters off Gaza immediately after the war began on July 8, aware that the sea has been used as a means to attack Israel in the past. Four armed Palestinian frogmen who swam to southern Israel from Gaza were killed by Israeli forces on the first day of the conflagration.

As Palestinian and Israeli negotiators meet independently with Egyptian officials in Cairo to try to reach an agreement to end the conflict, maritime rights are one of the critical issues up for discussion. The deadline of the latest, 72-hour ceasefire expires at 2100 GMT on Wednesday, with no accord in sight.

The Palestinians want Israel to allow fishermen to sail up to 12 nautical miles from the shore — the internationally defined limit for a nation’s waters — so that they can net greater numbers of larger fish.

Over the past eight years, Israel has set a six-mile limit for Gaza’s fishermen when tensions were lower, restricting it to three miles when hostilities have escalated.

Israel says Gaza’s sea, air and land blockade aims to prevent Hamas, the Islamist group which runs Gaza, from acquiring weapons or materials that could be used against Israel.

Since Israel responded to rocket fire from Gaza with air strikes and a ground invasion, fighting that left more than 1,900 Palestinians and 64 soldiers and three civilians in Israel dead — fishermen have been even more restricted, barely leaving the shoreline.

“They brought us back to zero,” said fisherman Khalid Abu Riyad, 50, on a jetty before heading out to sea before dawn.

Dangerous waters

The United Nations food agency estimates 3,600 Gaza households are involved in fishing. Just under half of those have no other source of income.

“The livelihood of these people is completely jeopardised,” said Ciro Fiorillo, head of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation’s operations in Gaza and the West Bank.

The agency estimates that the latest conflict deprived fishermen of around 200-250 tonnes of fish, or 9-10 per cent of their average annual catch under a six-mile restriction.

Fishermen describe being shot at or harassed by Israeli naval vessels, sometimes even when they are inside the allocated fishing zone, which is marked with illuminated red warning buoys. They say Israel has sometimes confiscated equipment and on occasion they have had to abandon it if they came under fire.

“It is very dangerous, after six miles there may be shooting,” said Suboh Al Hesi, a 36-year-old fisherman.

Hesi earns 20-30 shekels ($6-9) a day but often comes back empty-handed. The past four years have been especially tough, he says: fuel has tripled in price since 2006 and competition has increased because more men started to fish when they lost their jobs on the land.

Before the restrictions, he was able to catch sea bream, grouper and other larger fish. Now he is lucky if he gets a bucket of small crabs or sardines, which are far less valuable.

The fishing community say they need the fishing zone to be expanded to at least 10 miles and ideally to 12, where schools of fish are more prevalent.

“Gaza is an area that is a fish passage, a transit area,” said a 49-year-old fisherman who gave his name as Abu Mohammad. Fish do not stay close to the shore but sweep by further out and that is where the fishermen need to be, he said.

Instead of serving fish caught miles from their doorstep, the stretch of restaurants close to the shore offer farmed, frozen seafood, or fish smuggled in through tunnels from Egypt.

Asaad Abu Hasira, 53, recalled that before 2000, his fish restaurant and the industry were thriving.

“It was excellent, tourists used to come from Arab countries. There were foreign and local tourists and international delegations,” he said at his coastal business, which has been serving up fish since 1955.

Twenty years ago, Israelis would come as tourists to Gaza and eat in the restaurants. Fishermen would even export their catch to Israel, said Hasira, who comes from a fishing family.

For him, the maritime feud has done more than restrict livelihoods, it has harmed cultural links with the sea.

“Part of Palestinian society lives by the sea and works by the sea. There is a greater fishing tradition than in Israel,” he said, adding that he cannot bring himself to give up.

“I love fish, if I am away from the sea, I die — like a fish.”

BENGHAZI, Libya — Libya’s parliament on Wednesday voted to disband the country’s militia brigades and called on the United Nations to protect civilians in an effort to end the worst fighting between armed factions since the 2011 fall of Muammar Qadhafi.

Lawmakers appeared to be seeking to strip the groups of former rebel fighters of the legitimacy they say they were given by the previous parliament and government ministries, and loosen their grip over Libya’s fragile democracy.

But with Libya’s army still in formation, it was unclear how the new Congress would enforce its decision. Composed of ex-rebels who once fought Qadhafi, the brigades are heavily armed and allied with powerful political factions.

US, UN and European officials hope the new parliament can forge dialogue among the warring factions. But there is little appetite among Western governments for on-the-ground intervention beyond encouraging the sides to talk.

For more than a month, two rival brigades have battled with rockets and artillery, turning southern Tripoli in a battlefield, and forcing the United Nations and Western governments to close their embassies, and evacuate diplomats.

One lawmaker said parliament’s decision would include the Libya Shield brigades tied to Misrata city and their rivals, the Qaaqaa and Al Sawaiq brigades, allied with Zintan city, who have been fighting over Tripoli Airport for a month.

“The decision will dissolve all armed brigades, including all the Shields and Qaqaa, and Sawaiq,” the lawmaker told Reuters.

The parliament also called for the “United Nations and the Security Council to immediately intervene to protect civilians and state institutions in Libya”.

The two sides — fighters loyal to the western town of Zintan and more Islamist-leaning militias allied with Misrata — once fought together against Qadhafi forces but their rivalries erupted into street battles over the airport last month, killing more than 200 people.

A United Nations delegation, from a Libyan mission known as UNSMIL, is seeking a ceasefire between Zintan and Misrata forces.

At least five people were killed and families were forced from their homes when Grad rockets hit neighbourhoods in western Tripoli during clashes between rival armed factions, officials and witnesses said on Wednesday.

“UNSMIL continues to call for the combatants to heed Libyan as well as international calls for an immediate cease-fire,” said Stephane Dujarric, a spokesman for the UN Secretary General.

Western partners, fearing Libya will slide into a failed state just across the Mediterranean from mainland Europe, have been frustrated by factions whose loyalties are often tied to cities, regions and former commanders rather than the state.

A separate battle in the city of Benghazi is complicating Libya’s security after Islamist fighters joined forces with an ex-rebel group to force special forces from the eastern city.

Around 400 Philippine nationals and some European citizens, and Egyptians were the latest to evacuate by ship from Benghazi Port on Wednesday en route to Malta, according to Libyan Red Crescent representative Qais Al Fakhry.

Oil progress?

Three years after Qadhafi’s fall, Libya’s transition to democracy has been a messy one, with armed factions often targeting or storming the parliament and ministries to press for decisions favouring their political backers.

With access to huge arsenals of Qadhafi-era weapons, armed groups have proven a massive challenge for the state, even taking over parts of Libya’s key oil installations and cutting oil lifeline crude exports to make demands.

In a positive development, an oil tanker carrying 670,000 barrels of crude left Ras Lanuf oil terminal, the first shipment since the port was reopened following a year of blockades, a spokesman for state-run National Oil Corporation said.

The tanker carrying Sirtica crude left the Libyan port on Tuesday evening, the spokesman said.

Until April, federalist rebels demanding more autonomy for their eastern region were holding four out of five eastern oil ports, cutting off over half of Libya’s export capacity of 1.25 million barrels per day and hitting production in the North African OPEC member.

The government managed to strike a deal to free up the ports, but technical problems have delayed the full restart of shipments. The NOC says current national production is around 450,000 barrels per day.

DOHUK, Iraq — The Kurdish peshmerga fighter ran out of ammunition but saved two bullets to end his own life in case Islamic State (IS) militants caught up with him as he fled the front line in northwest Iraq.

After a two-month stand-off along a 1,000-kilometre-long front, the Kurds failed their first major test, allowing the Sunni militants who want to redraw the map of the Middle East to grab more towns, oil fields and Iraq’s biggest dam.

The peshmerga, literally “those who confront death”, had built up a reputation as fearsome warriors, but in the end they proved no match for the better-armed militants who attacked them with suicidal zeal.

“They took us by surprise,” said the peshmerga fighter, who asked to remain unnamed because the force had been ordered not to divulge any information about their defeat.

“For every mortar round we fired, they fired 100 back. We didn’t know where they were coming from. We lost contact with each other. We didn’t have enough weapons. It was chaos,” he told Reuters.

In just a few days, the Kurds pulled back to the borders of their region, leaving behind towns they had held for years and tens of thousands of people at the mercy of militants notorious for beheadings and execution-style shootings.

The IS militants reached to within 35km of the Kurdish capital Erbil, prompting the United States to launch air strikes on Iraq for the first time since the end of US occupation in 2011.

The routing damaged the peshmergas’ aura of invincibility as one of the only fighting forces in Iraq capable of taking on the IS, and threatened the Kurdistan region’s standing as the sole patch of stability in a country torn by sectarian conflict.

“This was the first time we saw the peshmerga withdraw, and it had a deep impact on all the peshmerga and the whole of Kurdish society,” said spokesman General Halgurd Hikmat.

Peshmerga untested after invasion

The peshmerga emerged from the Kurdish nationalist movement in the first half of the 20th century after the collapse of the Ottoman and Qajar empires, and number about 200,000.

During Saddam Hussein’s decades of iron-fisted rule, they won their reputation as the supreme guardians of the ethnic Kurds, non-Arabs who have always dreamed of an independent state in Iraq’s mountainous north and beyond.

During Saddam’s dictatorship, they were regularly subjected to military campaigns, including chemical weapon attacks and assassinations. The peshmerga were never really tested after a US-led invasion toppled Saddam in 2003.

While Shiites and Sunnis engaged in wholesale sectarian slaughter, Kurdistan remained free of the bloodshed. Just possessing mostly AK-47 assault rifles wasn’t a big problem.

That changed after the Islamic State seized arms from tanks to anti-aircraft weapons and machineguns from thousands of US-trained soldiers who fled their first advance in June.

A video filmed by the Islamic State after it overran towns in the Nineveh plains showed peshmerga uniforms left hanging from pegs on a wall, and the television still playing triumphal footage of a peshmerga parade.

“One of the major faults in Kurdish history has been a tendency to be overconfident at the worst of times,” said Ramzy Mardini, non-resident fellow with the Atlantic Council.

“The Kurds have certainly oversold their military capabilities and security establishment. There was likely a strategic logic to puff out the chest and inflate the rhetoric, but at some level, many Kurds may have believed their own propaganda.”

Checkpoint army

As the IS marched on Baghdad and the Iraqi army abandoned its bases in the north of the country, the Kurds capitalised on the chaos to expand their territory by as much as 40 per cent overnight, hardly firing a bullet.

Having seized oil fields in the town of Kirkuk, the peshmerga took up defensive positions, occasionally skirmishing with the militants but avoiding full-on confrontation. At least 150 peshmerga have been killed since the IS seized the city of Mosul on June 10, according to Kurdish officials.

Stretched thin over a vast area and armed with Soviet-era weapons raided from the Iraqi army during the 2003 invasion, the peshmerga were unprepared to confront an enemy that has been honing its skills in neighbouring Syria for the past two years.

“The peshmerga are used to guarding checkpoints but they’re not used to this kind of high-intensity fighting in places they often don’t know amongst people who are not Kurds,” said John Drake, Iraq analyst at London-based consultancy AKE, a firm that advises the oil industry amongst other clients.

The IS was also better equipped with weapons plundered from the Iraq army, including long-range artillery, tanks, armoured vehicles, rocket launchers, and sniper rifles, as well as tonnes of ammunition. They were also flush with cash.

The US government has now begun supplying arms to the Kurds directly, responding to their pleas for military hardware to match the Islamic State’s. The threat has also spurred cooperation between the region and the federal government in Baghdad, which has withheld arms and salaries from the peshmerga for years due to disputes over oil and budgets.

Charles Dunne, who worked on Iraq at the White House during the Bush administration, said the Kurds were strong enough to preserve themselves, but might not be able to regain all the territory they let go.

“Militarily, I doubt that the KRG’s (Kurdish Regional Government) armed forces are capable of, or, especially, willing to take the fight far south of their borders but, with substantial assistance — not only weapons but intel — are capable of defending their own territory.”

Old guard gone

Those who earned the peshmerga’s reputation for prowess and bravery fighting Saddam’s army are now older or dead, and the new generation has little if any experience of war.

Many peshmerga work a second job to supplement an average salary of just 650,000 Iraqi Dinars ($560) per month.

“It’s been almost a decade since their mostly light infantry brigades have been tested in battle, so it’s not surprising that they’ve taken some knocks from IS,” said a US official, who described the peshmerga as “capable and disciplined”.

“The peshmerga certainly have the resilience and skill to fight back effectively, as we are already starting to see on the ground.”

In recent days, the Kurds appear to have regained their footing. Thousands of volunteers have rushed to join the peshmerga’s ranks, and two towns — Makhmur and Gwer — were retaken with the help of guerrillas from the Kurdistan Workers’ Party after US strikes on IS positions, witnesses said.

Further east, however, they were forced to surrender the town of Jalawla, in a strategic loss one peshmerga deployed there blamed at least in part on internal Kurdish rivalries.

Although Kurds are united in hostility to the IS, the peshmerga still answer ultimately to the region’s two dominant political parties, which fought a civil war against each other during the 1990s.

Plans to overhaul the peshmerga and integrate them under a unified command are incomplete, and a senior Kurdish politician told Reuters the weakest units were the mixed ones, because each party had kept its best fighters for itself.

“Yes, there have been some reverses by the peshmerga and disorganisation, some withdrawals in certain places, but this is not a conventional war,” said Iraq’s Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari, admitting that even the most expert peshmerga commanders had been stunned by the ferocity of the IS.

“Nobody should underestimate their ability and capacity. They are attacking with small numbers, mobile forces and speed: They are not holding territory.”

Tactical retreat?

The peshmerga’s withdrawal from Sinjar left tens of thousands of ethnic Yezidis at the mercy of the IS, which considers them devil worshippers, or stranded on a mountain with scant food and water.

Several Yezidis said they had begged the peshmerga to hand over their weapons before they withdrew so they could protect themselves, but were refused.

“There was categorically no order to withdraw from any front,” said peshmerga spokesman Hikmat, dismissing statements by some Kurdish officials that the retreat was tactical. “There was negligence.”

Hikmat said the field commanders responsible for the area were under investigation. It will take more, however, to restore confidence among Yezidis, who feel betrayed by the peshmerga.

“We used to feel safe, and that the peshmerga had our back,” said 31-year-old Yezidi Firas, who fled Sinjar with his family and eventually made it to the Kurdish city of Dohuk after escaping from the Mount Sinjar via Syria.

“We trusted them, but they withdrew and destroyed us. How can we trust them anymore?”

Walking on crutches, the peshmerga, who was wounded fighting in Sinjar, said he would return to the line of duty as soon as his ankle healed, but admitted he had never really expected to take part in a conflict.

“We didn’t think the day would come when there would be another war”. 

DUBAI — Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Wednesday nuclear talks with world powers would continue, but added there was no point in holding negotiations with the United States on other issues.

Khamenei, who has the last word on all matters in Shiite Muslim Iran, appeared to give a nuanced message on the country’s often fraught relationship with Washington.

The nuclear talks, which involve the United States, have resulted in an interim deal under which Tehran has curbed some atomic activity in exchange for limited sanctions relief.

“There are no benefits in having relations or negotiations with the United States, except in certain specific cases,” Khamenei told a gathering of Iranian diplomats, according to a statement on his website.

“Of course, on the nuclear front, talks will continue. What [Foreign Minister Javad] Dr Zarif and his team started and has been going well until now, will continue,” he said.

Six major powers and Iran failed to meet a July 20 deadline to negotiate a comprehensive nuclear agreement. The six — Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States — agreed to extend the deadline until November 24.

“We will not ban them [the negotiations]. But this has become yet another invaluable experience that interaction and talks with Americans have absolutely no effect in easing their animosity [towards Iran],” Khamenei said.

“Some people were under the impression that sitting down to talk with America would solve all our problems. I knew that wouldn’t be the case, but gave it a try due to the sensitive nature of the nuclear issue,” he said.

“Now the events of the past year have proved this hunch to be true. Not only did we gain nothing out of these interactions, but the tone of American officials have become harsher and more insulting,” he said.

Last year, Khamenei had called for “heroic flexibility”, giving cautious support to the talks after many years of Iranian refusal to discuss any curbs on the nuclear work it says is for peaceful purposes, but which Tehran’s critics believe is aimed at developing weapons capability.

The interim nuclear deal has also come under attack by some Iranian hardliners who are unsettled by the shift to a more a moderate foreign policy since Iranian President Hassan Rouhani took office a year ago.

Earlier this week, Rouhani called critics of his nuclear policy “cowards”.

CAIRO — Former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak denied in court on Wednesday ordering the killing of protesters during the 2011 uprising that ended his 30-year rule.

Mubarak was sentenced to life in prison in 2012 for complicity in the deaths of demonstrators and the breakdown of law-and-order during the 18-day revolt, but an appeals court subsequently ordered a retrial.

He was freed on those charges but is serving a separate three-year sentence for embezzlement at a military hospital in the upscale Maadi district of Cairo.

Mubarak, who is on trial with his sons and other senior officials, also denied the corruption charges and said he had faithfully served his country for 62 years, first as a military officer and later as president.

“Hosni Mubarak, who is before you today, did not order at all the killing of protesters or the shedding of the blood of Egyptians,” he told the court room, reading from a prepared statement. “And I did not issue an order to cause chaos and I did not issue an order to create a security vacuum.”

Many Egyptians who lived through three decades of autocracy and crony capitalism under Mubarak considered it a victory to see him and his allies behind bars.

But since the ouster of freely elected Islamist president Mohamed Morsi last year by then-army chief Abdel Fattah Al Sisi, some Mubarak-era allies have been freed, raising concern among activists that the old regime was regaining influence.

Sisi, who went on to win a presidential election, vowed that Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood would cease to exist under his rule.

Hundreds of Islamists have been killed and thousands have been arrested in the past year, many of them sentenced to death in mass trials that have drawn condemnation from Western governments and human rights groups.

At the same time, some of the leading figures of the 2011 revolution have found themselves on the wrong side of Egypt’s new rulers, serving long sentences for taking part in small and non-violent demonstrations after the government issued a law banning protests without permission.

The judge said the verdict in Mubarak’s case is scheduled to be issued on September 27.

TEHRAN — Iran's president came under fire from MPs Tuesday for branding his critics as “political cowards” and urging them "go to hell" if they insist on opposing his policies.

President Hassan Rouhani's remarks 24 hours earlier were aimed at hardline conservatives who have bridled at his efforts to improve relations with the West and secure a nuclear deal.

But denouncing his opponents prompted a backlash from dozens of MPs who signed a letter demanding that Rouhani come to parliament to explain himself.

One conservative lawmaker said that 200 of the parliament's 270 members would eventually sign the letter.

According to another MP quoted on Iranian media, Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani told a closed meeting that Rouhani's words were "indefensible and unacceptable".

But Larijani went on to urge lawmakers "not to make a big deal of it because the country's economic problems are significant" and more worthy of their attention.

In his fiery speech, Rouhani attacked the hardline factions within parliament who have consistently opposed him, particularly on the nuclear issue, since he took office after a surprise electoral victory last year.

"Some of them chant slogans but they are political cowards," he said of those who are sceptical or against a nuclear agreement.

"As soon as we negotiate they start shaking. Go to hell and find somewhere to stay warm," Rouhani told his opponents.

A moderate whose tenure has so far focused on economic and foreign policy, Rouhani said Iran faces three phobias abroad: Iranophobia, Islamaphobia and Shiaphobia.

But on the home front, the country must confront "Ententephobia" from those who oppose his overtures to the rest of the world for better relations after years in the diplomatic wilderness.

TRIPOLI — Hooded attackers shot dead Tripoli police chief Colonel Mohammed Al Suissi in the Libyan capital's eastern suburbs on Tuesday, a security source told AFP.

"Colonel Al Suissi was assassinated by a group of unknown hooded people who opened fire on him in his vehicle. Two men with him were kidnapped in the attack," said the source, who asked not to be named.

Suissi had taken part in a meeting of Tajura municipal council in the eastern suburbs and was on his way back to Tripoli city centre when the attack took place, the source said.

State news agency Lana confirmed the assassination and said Colonel Suissi died shortly after arrival at a nearby clinic.

The agency added that the two bodyguards who had been abducted when Suissi was killed had been freed and were heading back to their Tripoli headquarters. It gave no further details.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility.

Interior ministry spokesperson, Rami Kaal, said an investigation was under way into Suissi's death, adding that funeral arrangements were being planned for the police chief.

Since the fall of long-time dictator Muammar Qadhafi in 2011, the interim authorities have failed to establish order and security in a country prone to anarchy and deadly violence.

They have been unable to restrain a large number of militias formed by ex-rebels who fought Qadhafi and who still hold sway across Libya.

However, though the army and law enforcement services are regularly targeted in the eastern city of Benghazi, such attacks are rare in Tripoli.

The killing of the police chief comes at a time of clashes between rival militias in the Libyan capital, centred on the international airport which has been closed by the violence since July 13.

Witnesses said the sound of explosions can be heard daily from the fighting.

The clashes have killed at least 124 people and wounded more than 500. Officials say the strife has displaced around 36,000 people who have fled the area for safer parts of Tripoli.

The violence has triggered a dire humanitarian situation in the Libyan capital, where petrol and bottled gas have become scarce along with food supplies and water.

Many shops and banks have also stayed closed.

BAGHDAD — Iraq's new prime minister-designate won swift endorsements from uneasy mutual allies the United States and Iran on Tuesday as he called on political leaders to end crippling feuds that have let jihadists seize a third of the country.

Haider Al Abadi still faces opposition closer to home, where his Shiite party colleague Nouri Al Maliki has refused to step aside after eight years as premier that have alienated Iraq's once dominant Sunni minority and irked Washington and Tehran.

However, Shiite militia and army commanders long loyal to Maliki signalled their backing for the change, as did many people on the streets of Baghdad, eager for an end to fears of a further descent into sectarian and ethnic bloodletting.

Sunni neighbours Turkey and Saudi Arabia also welcomed Abadi's appointment.

A statement from Maliki's office said he met senior security officials and army and police commanders to urge them "not to interfere in the political crisis". At least 17 people were killed in two car bombings in Shiite areas of Baghdad.

As Western powers and international aid agencies considered further help for tens of thousands of people driven from their homes and under threat from the Sunni militants of the Islamic State near the Syrian border, Secretary of State John Kerry said the United States would consider requests for military and other assistance once Abadi forms a government to unite the country.

US officials said the Obama administration was already considering sending more military advisers to Iraq. Speaking on condition of anonymity, several said a decision to send at least 70 extra military personnel was likely later on Tuesday, although a final decision had not yet been made.

Senior Iranian officials also congratulated Abadi on his nomination, three months after a parliamentary election left Maliki’s bloc as the biggest in the legislature.

“Iran supports the legal process that has taken its course with respect to choosing Iraq’s new prime minister,” the representative of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on the Supreme National Security Council was quoted as saying.

“Iran favours a cohesive, integrated and secure Iraq,” he said, adding an apparent appeal to Maliki to concede.

Abadi himself, long exiled in Britain, is seen as a far less polarising, sectarian figure than Maliki, who is also from the Shiite Islamic Dawa Party. Abadi appears to have the blessing of Iraq’s powerful Shiite clergy, a major force since US troops toppled Sunni leader Saddam Hussein in 2003.

Iraqi state television said Abadi “called on all political powers who believe in the constitution and democracy to unite efforts and close ranks to respond to Iraq’s great challenges”.

One politician close to Abadi told Reuters that the prime minister-designate had begun contacting leaders of major groups to sound them out on forming a new Cabinet. The president said on Monday he hoped he would succeed within the next month.

A statement from a major Shiite militia group, Asaib Ahl Haq, which has backed Maliki and reinforced the Iraqi army as it fell back from the north in June, called for an end to the  legalistic arguments of the kind used by Maliki to justify his retaining power and urged “self-restraint by all sides”.

It said leaders should “give priority to the public interest over the private” and respect clerical guidance.

While US officials have been at pains not to appear to be imposing a new leadership on Iraq, three years after US troops left the country, President Barack Obama was quick to welcome the appointment. Wrangling over a new government since Iraqis elected the new parliament in April has been exploited by the Islamic State to seize much of the north and west.

Obama has sent hundreds of US military advisers and last week launched air strikes on the militants after they made dramatic gains against the Peshmerga forces of Iraq’s autonomous ethnic Kurdish region, an ally of the Baghdad authorities.

Kurdish President Masoud Barzani told US Vice President Joe Biden that he would work with Abadi, the White House said.

US officials have said the Kurds are also receiving direct military aid, and US and British aircraft have dropped food and other supplies to terrified civilians, including from the Yazidi religious minority, who have taken refuge in remote mountains. The United Nations said on Tuesday that 20,000 to 30,000 Yazidis may still be sheltering on the arid Mount Sinjar.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon described the Yazidis’ plight on the mountain as dire. “I urge the international community to do even more to provide the protection they need,” he told reporters.

Kerry, who on Monday had warned Maliki not to resort to force to hold on to power, said on Tuesday that Abadi could win more US military and economic assistance.

“We are prepared to consider additional political, economic and security options as Iraq’s government starts to build a new government,” he told a news conference in Australia, where he also reaffirmed that Washington would not send combat troops.

“The best thing for stability in Iraq is for an inclusive government to bring the disaffected parties to the table and work with them in order to make sure there is the kind of sharing of power and decision making that people feel confident the government represents all of their interests,” Kerry added.

It remains unclear how much support Maliki, who remains acting premier, has to obstruct the formation of a new administration. One senior government official told Reuters that his fears of a military standoff in the capital had eased as police and troops had reduced their presence on the streets.

“Yesterday Baghdad was very tense,” he said. “But key military commanders have since contacted the president and said they would support him and not Maliki.”

GAZA/CAIRO — Talks to end a month-long war between Israel and Gaza fighters are "difficult", Palestinian delegates said on Tuesday, while Israeli officials said no progress had been made so far and fighting could soon resume.

As a 72-hour ceasefire held for a second day, Palestinian negotiators held fresh talks with Egyptian intelligence following a meeting on Monday that lasted nine hours.

Hamas, the Islamist group that dominates the Gaza Strip, and its allies are seeking an end to an Israeli and Egyptian blockade of the coastal enclave.

"We are facing difficult negotiations," Hamas' leader in Cairo, Moussa Abu Marzouk, said on Twitter.

An Israeli official, who declined to be named, said the gaps between the sides were big.

"There is no progress in the negotiations," the official said.

Defence Minister Moshe Yaalon told Israel’s armed forces to prepare for a possible resumption of hostilities.

“I don’t know if, by midnight on Wednesday, we will reach an accommodation. I don’t know if we will need to extend negotiations. It could be that shooting will erupt again and we will again be firing at them,” he said, visiting a navy base.

A Palestinian official with knowledge of the Cairo talks told Reuters, on condition of anonymity: “So far we can’t say a breakthrough has been achieved ... Twenty-four hours and we shall see whether we have an agreement.”

Hamas also wants the opening of a seaport for Gaza, a project Israel says should be dealt with only in any future talks on a permanent peace agreement with the Palestinians.

Israel has resisted lifting the economically stifling blockade on Gaza and suspects Hamas will restock with weapons from abroad if access to the coastal territory is eased. Neighbouring Egypt also sees Hamas as a security threat.

Israel pulled ground forces out of Gaza last week after it said the army had completed its main mission of destroying more than 30 tunnels. It now wants guarantees Hamas will not use any reconstruction supplies sent into the enclave to rebuild those tunnels.

The Palestinian official said the Palestine delegation had agreed that reconstruction in Gaza should be carried out by the unity government of technocrats set up in June by Hamas and the more secular Fateh Party of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who is based in the occupied West Bank.

War crimes investigation

Israeli representatives are not meeting face-to-face with the Palestinian delegation because it includes Hamas, which Israel regards as a terrorist organisation. Hamas for its part does not recognise Israel.

In Gaza, many families have returned to areas they had been forced to leave by the Israeli army, but some found their homes had been shelled or bombed. Some people pitched tents, while others spent the night in their homes if they could.

Children looked for toys in the rubble. One boy was happy to find his bicycle, pushing it along even though the tyres had been punctured.

“It is not safe yet but we miss our homes, we miss our neighbourhood, so we come to sit with friends and chat about our fate,” said Abu Khaled Hassan, 50.

Israeli naval forces fired warning shots at a Palestinian fishing boat which broke the naval blockade on Tuesday, the military said. Gaza officials said no one was hurt and the incident did not appear to threaten the truce.

A Palestinian died of wounds from the war on Tuesday, Gaza hospital officials said, bringing to 1,939 the territory’s mostly civilian death toll since the July 8 launch of Israel’s aggression.

The heavy losses among civilians and the destruction of thousands of homes in Gaza, where 1.8 million Palestinians are squeezed into a narrow enclave, have drawn international condemnation.

According to the United Nations, at least 425,000 displaced people in the Gaza Strip are in emergency shelters or staying with host families. Nearly 12,000 homes have been destroyed or severely damaged by Israeli air strikes and heavy shelling.

In Geneva, the United Nations named an international commission of inquiry into possible human rights violations and war crimes by both sides during the conflict.

The commission, which will be headed by William Schabas, a Canadian professor of international law, was hailed by Hamas and condemned by Israel.

“Hamas welcomes the decision to form an investigation committee into the war crimes committed by the occupation against Gaza and it urges that it begin work as soon as possible,” spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said.

Israel said the Human Rights Council was biased against it.

“The Human Rights Council long ago turned into the ‘terrorist rights council’ and a kangaroo court, whose ‘investigations’ are pre-determined,” Yigal Palmor, spokesperson for Israel’s foreign ministry, said in a statement.

“If any more proof were needed, the appointment of the chairman of the panel, whose anti-Israel bias and opinions are known to all, proves beyond any doubt that Israel cannot expect justice from this body.”

Schabas rejected accusations of bias.

“I am not anti-Israeli. I’ve frequently lectured in Israel at universities. I am a member of the editorial board of the Israel Law Review. I wouldn’t do those things if I was anti-Israel,” Schabas told Israel Radio.

“The more Israel participates in the inquiry by providing us with specific information about targeting and selection of targets, [the more it] will assist the commission in making more fair and accurate judgements about proportionality.”

ISTANBUL — Pro-Palestinian activists said on Tuesday they would send ships this year to the Gaza Strip to try to breach Israel’s naval blockade, repeating an action that four years ago ended with Israeli marines boarding a vessel and killing nine Turks.

The Freedom Flotilla Coalition, made up of 10 rights groups from 10 countries, did not specify how many ships would sail or when. Israel views the Istanbul-based Humanitarian Relief Foundation (IHH), a leading participant, as a terrorist group.

“It is the responsibility of civil society to challenge this blockade ... We plan to sail to Gaza during 2014,” said Ann Ighe, a Swedish spokeswoman for the coalition, after a meeting in Istanbul of pro-Palestinian activists from 10 countries.

Israel, which is in Egyptian-mediated talks with Gaza’s dominant Hamas Islamists to end a month-old war, brushed off the activists’ plan and signalled the blockade would be enforced.

“They have got nothing to do with human rights or humanitarian assistance. They are interested in pursuing conflict,” said Paul Hirschson, a foreign ministry spokesman, noting previous flotilla announcements had not been carried out.

“The naval blockade has been ruled legal and legitimate by the United Nations. It is there because of terror against the Israeli public.”

Earlier this year, Turkish anti-terrorist police raided the offices of IHH, the main agency through which Turkey channels aid to Syria, in a move the group said was a ploy to tarnish it. The IHH denied media reports at the time that it was involved in arms shipments to Al Qaeda-linked groups in Syria.

In 2010, the IHH led a flotilla, including the cruise ship Mavi Marmara, that was carrying humanitarian aid when it was stopped in international waters by the Israeli navy.

Marines stormed Mavi Marmara and killed nine Turks in deck clashes. A 10th person died this May from wounds sustained in the incident, which wrecked already-damaged relations between Israel and Turkey, once Middle East allies.

A UN inquiry appointed by Secretary General Ban Ki-moon faulted Israel for excessive force against the Mavi Marmara but also found the Gaza blockade to be a lawful means of preventing weapons from reaching the Palestinian enclave’s militants.

The activists will not seek support from the Turkish government, such as for a military escort, because it is a non-governmental mission “committed to non-violence”, said Dror Feiler, an Israeli-born Swedish citizen who took part in the 2010 effort.

The plan may hinder efforts to rebuild the Turkish-Israeli relationship, just as Ankara launched an “air corridor” carrying wounded Palestinians to Turkey and aid to Gaza.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, elected president on Sunday, has been among the most vocal critics of Israel’s current conflict with Hamas — fighting that has killed 1,939 Palestinians, mostly civilians, as well as 64 Israeli soldiers and three civilians in Israel.

The group said the proposed flotilla would travel to Gaza to collect commercial goods purchased from the occupied territory.