Region

RIYADH — Saudi Arabia’s specialised criminal court has sentenced four men to prison for travelling abroad to fight in Syria’s civil war, local and state media reported on Sunday.

King Abdullah decreed in February that citizens involved in fighting overseas faced up to 20 years in prison in a bid to prevent the radicalisation of young people who might then turn against their own government.

While the conservative Sunni Muslim kingdom has backed opposition groups battling President Bashar Assad, an ally of Riyadh’s main regional rival Shiite Iran, it also regards militant groups there as a threat to its own security.

“The accused were proven to have ... quit their obedience to the ruler by travelling abroad to fight,” the official Saudi Press Agency reported.

The men were sentenced to terms ranging between four months and two years and 10 months, it said, adding that their crimes included forgery of travel documents and money laundering.

The website of the daily Al Riyadh newspaper said two of the men had fought in Syria before becoming disillusioned with the conflict and surrendering to Saudi authorities.

The other two had travelled to Yemen with the intention of then going to Syria, it said. The sentences were lenient as the defendants had shown remorse and cooperated with authorities.

The kingdom has called on citizens fighting in Syria, Iraq and Yemen to return home, often describing them as “misled” in official statements. Saudi state media usually reserves its harshest criticism for militant groups or clerics who recruit young Saudis as fighters.

BEIRUT — Syrian regime air raids killed 12 people on Sunday and wounded 23, including a mother and a baby boy removed from her womb, according to a monitoring group and amateur video.

The video, broadcast by militants in the city of Raqa in northeastern Syria and whose authenticity could not be verified, shows a frail infant being resuscitated with a respiratory mask on his face and blood-soaked cotton by his side.

His little chest is seen responding to treatment as his bloodstained head is wrapped in gauze.

“This baby’s mother was wounded in the belly, and we had to remove him. He was hit in the head by shrapnel, and the doctors are trying to save him,” said a commentary on the video footage.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group also reported that the infant had been removed from his mother’s womb, and said both mother and child survived the ordeal.

It said 12 people — including five children, a woman and a teacher — were killed when regime warplanes bombarded parts of Raqa city which is held by Islamic State jihadist fighters.

Since the IS launched a lightning offensive in neighbouring Iraq two months ago, regime forces have been pounding positions of the jihadists who also control territory in eastern and northern Syria.

The group, which declared a “caliphate” straddling the two countries at the end of June, is seeking to extend the territory it controls.

IS fighters have spread terror in its strongholds such as Raqa, where it imposes its own extreme interpretation of Islam, and arrests people, beheading some and stoning others.

In the eastern province of Deir Ezzor, most of which it controls, the IS has seized three villages from the influential local Shuwaitat tribe.

Two weeks of fighting between the jihadists and tribesmen is reported to have killed dozens of people and led to an exodus of more than 5,000 civilians.

The more than three-year conflict in Syria, which the observatory says has killed more than 170,000 people, has become even more complex with the rise of jihadist groups battling both government forces and mainstream rebels.

TEHRAN — An Iranian passenger plane crashed Sunday moments after takeoff from Tehran, killing 39 people on board and narrowly avoiding many more deaths when it plummeted near a busy market.

The plane was headed to the eastern city of Tabas, the IRNA and Fars news agencies said, when it crashed at 9:18am (0448 GMT), after leaving Mehrabad Airport.

It triggered a fireball when it smashed into the capital’s Azadi neighbourhood, close to where hundreds of military families live, and only a few hundred metres from a row of shops.

Iran’s deputy transport minister, Ahmad Majidi, said the Antonov An-140 turboprop plane had 40 passengers, including six children, and eight crew on board.

The accident killed 39 people and injured nine, according to the latest official toll. A fire official initially said all on board had been killed.

The aircraft was operated by Sepahan Airlines, and a tail section bearing the company’s dolphin logo could be seen sticking out of the road as security forces cordoned off the crash site where firefighters had doused the flames.

Black smoke billowed from the mass of burnt out and twisted metal, with officials saying the plane hit a wall and trees.

“The scene was terrible, with the back of the plane in the middle of the street,” one witness said.

“But we were lucky because there was a market 500 metres away and a lot of people were there.”

Another witness told state television: “I was on my motorbike and I heard something behind me. I turned round and it was a plane, so I got on to the ground because it was so close.

“With other people, we ran to try to save the passengers but there were two or three loud explosions and a huge fire.”

Mehrabad airport, near central Tehran, is by far the country’s busiest domestic hub, serving routes to all major Iranian cities.

Most international passenger flights take off from Tehran’s Imam Khomeini International Airport, which is farther west of the capital.

Alireza Jahangirian, the head of Iran’s civil aviation authority, said: “The plane crashed in trees. There were no casualties on the ground.”

An investigation is under way, he added.

The Ukrainian-designed An-140 is intended for regional use, has a range of around 2,400 kilometres and can carry up to 52 people. Iranian airlines are one of the plane’s biggest users.

The Isna news agency reported that the plane in Sunday’s crash had been assembled under licence by an Iranian company in Isfahan, 450 kilometres south of Tehran.

Later Sunday, President Hassan Rouhani ordered the grounding of all domestically produced An-140s.

“The president has asked for a complete report from the transport ministry, and in the meantime has ordered a halt to all flights by this type of aircraft,” IRNA reported.

Iran had nine locally built Antonov An-140s before Sunday’s crash.

Iran has suffered several air crashes in recent years, blamed on ageing planes, poor maintenance and a shortage of new parts because of international sanctions.

Iranian airlines, including state-run operators, are short of finance and have seen business suffer because of banking restrictions imposed on the Islamic republic by the United States and Europe.

Iran’s last major air crash was in January 2011, when an Iran Air Boeing 727 shattered on impact while attempting an emergency landing in a snowstorm in the northwest, killing 77 people.

And in July 2009, a Russian-made jetliner crashed shortly after taking off from the capital, killing all 168 people on board.

ADEN — An Al Qaeda-affiliated group in Yemen said it killed 14 soldiers in an eastern province as revenge for an army offensive against its members, while a US drone attack killed three suspected militants in central Yemen on Saturday, an official said.

The Yemeni army has sent extra troops to the Wadi Hadramout region in northeastern Yemen to counter attempts by militant group Ansar Al Sharia to declare an Islamic emirate in the city of Seiyoun.

In the past week, Yemeni security forces have killed at least 25 suspected militants in clashes in Wadi Hadramout, including seven who were killed on Thursday when they tried to attack an army facility.

Residents and officials said people in the area found the bodies of the 14 soldiers riddled with bullets on a road near Seiyoun, three hours after they were abducted from a public bus.

The soldiers were on their way to Sanaa, on leave after serving in the area.

Ansar Al Sharia, in an Internet posting late on Friday, confirmed its militants had ambushed and killed the soldiers for taking part in military operations against the group.

“...The captive soldiers participated in the latest campaign against Sunni Muslims in Wadi Hadramout, and thus the mujahedeen decided to kill them as a punishment for their crimes,” the statement said.

The group posted pictures of the soldiers in civilian clothes surrounded by militants concealing their faces with traditional head dresses.

On Saturday, three suspected Al Qaeda militants in the central province of Maareb were killed in a US drone, a local official told Reuters.

“The air raid was conducted by a US drone plane which targeted a house in the Maareb province, killing three people inside who are suspected to be members of Al Qaeda,” he said.

The United States considers Al Qaeda in Yemen one of the most dangerous wings of the militant network founded by Osama Bin Laden. In recent years it has made several attempts to carry out international attacks.

To counter the group, Washington lends financial and logistical support to the Yemen’s government and military, including regular drone strikes.

Stability in Yemen, one of the poorest countries in the Arab world, is of international concern because it borders major international shipping lanes and lies next to Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest oil exporter.

Taking advantage of a power vacuum that arose during a 2011 uprising against the then- president Ali Abdullah Saleh, militants took over several southern towns and districts but were later repelled by a US backed military offensive.

In recent months, militants have been trying to consolidate their control over remote and volatile parts of eastern Yemen such as Wadi Hadramout.

In Seiyoun, the group had been distributing leaflets suggesting they wanted to establish an Islamic emirate and ordered women not to go out without a male guardian.

WASHINGTON — International airlines steered clear of Iraq on Friday after Washington banned American air carriers from Iraqi skies in the immediate wake of US air strikes on Islamist fighters.

Flights to and from the Gulf and beyond, which typically would have taken airways through Iraq, favoured parallel routes via Iran instead, according to real-time flight tracking websites.

Flightradar24.com indicated a long stream of airliners Friday evening Middle East time, flying single file through western Iranian — and virtually none over Iraq, in a complete reversal from a month ago.

“We’re still seeing some non-US carriers that are overflying Iraq,” notably regional and domestic ones, added Daniel Baker of US-based FlightAware.com.

“By and large, though, we are seeing a lot of people going further to the north” and over the Turkish-Iran border, avoiding Iraq as well as war-torn Syria, he told AFP.

The Federal Aviation Administration in Washington (FAA) banned all US civilian flights over Iraq just hours after American warplanes bombed positions held by Islamic State insurgents, who have occupied swathes of northern Iraq.

British Airways declared it would no longer overfly Iraq, as did Lufthansa and its subsidiaries Austrian Airlines and Swiss — joining Air France, Emirates, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines and Virgin Atlantic, which had quietly opted to do so over the past two weeks.

In a Notice to Airmen (NOTAM), the FAA cited the “potentially hazardous situation created by the armed conflict” between Islamic State militants and Iraqi security forces “and their allies” as the reason for the indefinite ban.

The ban extends to “all US air carriers and commercial operators”, as well as US-licensed pilots unless they are flying aircraft registered in the United States for a foreign operator.

Chiefly affected by the FAA’s NOTAM are Delta and United Airlines, which both serve Gulf destinations from the United States — although flight tracking websites indicated Delta was already flying detours around Iraq.

“Very, very few flights from the United States fly over Iraq in the first place,” FlightAware’s Baker said.

‘Exercise caution’ 

However, the air lanes over northern and eastern Iraq have typically been favoured by international carriers for long-haul flights between Europe, the Middle East and Asia, despite many years of turmoil on the ground.

In a NOTAM dated July 22, the Iraq Civil Aviation Authority urged all pilots to “exercise caution... due to an increase of military operations from the ground to 23,500 feet [7,162 metres].”

And last week the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) told EU carriers to “exercise caution” over Iraq, saying “a potentially hazardous situation may exist” due to armed conflict.

Eurocontrol, the EU air traffic control service, reposted the FAA’s NOTAM on its website Friday, without announcing any restrictions of its own.

Jitters about flights over war zones escalated after the July 17 downing of Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 between Amsterdam and Kuala Lumpur above an area of eastern Ukraine controlled by Russian-backed separatists.

All 298 passengers and crew were killed after the Boeing 777 was knocked out of the sky by a ground-to-air missile, allegedly by rebels targeting a Ukrainian military aircraft.

On the heels of Friday’s FAA announcement, British Airways said it was “temporarily suspending our flights over Iraq” and using alternative routes to serve such Gulf points as Doha and Dubai.

Turkish Airlines, one of the key foreign carriers flying to Iraq, meanwhile said it had halted flights to Erbil “for security reasons until further notice”, following a similar announcement Thursday by Etihad Airways.

Last month, the FAA prohibited US airlines from overflying eastern Ukraine in the wake of the Malaysian Airlines tragedy, expanding a ban it had previously limited to Crimea.

It also briefly barred US air carriers from Tel Aviv after a Hamas rocket fell near the Israeli city’s Ben Gurion International Airport in the midst of the Gaza crisis.

GAZA CITY — Cradling his baby daughter, Saeed Masri took flight Friday from renewed Israeli bombardment of Gaza with little faith that even a UN facility can protect his family.

Three hours after a temporary ceasefire between Israel and Hamas ended, a missile hit the roof of a building opposite the apartment in Jabaliya where he was staying with relatives after his own neighbourhood was shelled.

“We were in Beit Hanoun and were there during the war and the shelling, so after that I came to stay here with my cousins,” Masri said as he trudged down the street with his family in tow.

It was only a small rocket fired by a drone, intended as a warning for civilians to leave, residents said.

It shattered the roof of the building and left no casualties, but an ambulance was parked around the corner in case it was followed by more attacks.

Masri heeded the message immediately, packing some food into plastic bags, gathering his wife and five children and setting off down the street to find safety.

His eyes darted as he spoke, looking back at the building just hit by the strike, his daughter silent in his arms and with the four other children milling around his legs.

He planned to take shelter in a UN-run school to keep his family safe, but he had little hope it would guarantee protection.

“The schools aren’t safe either, they hit the schools,” he said.

At least 153 schools in Gaza, including 90 run by the UN, have been damaged by Israeli air strikes or shelling during the conflict, the UN children’s fund UNICEF says.

Three deadly strikes on UN schools in the Gaza Strip since Israel launched its assault on the territory on July 8 stirred international fury.

“Why is the whole world sleeping, why?” asked Masri quietly. “Children and women are being targeted, and the world is sleeping.”

Still scared

As talks in Cairo aimed at reaching a lasting truce failed to achieve concrete results, Palestinian fighters fired two rockets at southern Israel before the 72-hour ceasefire ended at 0500 GMT.

Dozens more rocket attacks followed.

Israel retaliated, saying it was targeting terror sites in the coastal enclave where the Islamist group Hamas is the de facto ruler.

Palestinian emergency services said one of the strikes killed a 10-year-old boy.

The rocket fire prompted Gazans who had gone home during the ceasefire to return to the hospitals and schools to which some 200,000 people had fled to before the three-day reprieve.

In Beit Hanoun, a steady stream of families trudged along the road to a school.

Others riding donkey carts and cars packed with mattresses and clothes rattled past, just half an hour after the ceasefire ended.

Um Abdullah, 50, who did not give her real name, said she was reluctantly returning to the school she and her family had sheltered in.

“We were waiting for a second truce, but it did not come,” she sighed. “We waited until the last minute, until 8:00am, but it did not come.”

She had only been able to pack a small bag of clothes and another with some flat bread and tomatoes before fleeing again.

She would now stay in the school until a lasting truce was reached.

In the Tuffah neighbourhood of Gaza City, families trickled back to another UN-run school after receiving news of the failed truce.

Hundreds of refugees from some of the worst-damaged areas have sheltered in the classrooms overlooking a central courtyard.

Laundry was hanging from the rooms overlooking the courtyard, where there was a strong smell of sweat and waste.

In the courtyard, Abdullah Abdullah, 33, had just arrived back after spending the truce at home.

Like Masri, Abdullah was worried for his wife and children.

“I’m afraid because the schools were targeted, because young people died, women and children,” he said.

“We’re all scared, I’m scared, my children are scared, my wife is scared.”

BEIRUT — Lebanon’s leading Sunni politician Saad Hariri returned from self-imposed exile Friday on a trip to bolster the country’s army after clashes with jihadists in the latest spillover from Syria’s war.

Hariri’s visit, his first since 2011, comes after open conflict between the army and jihadists on the border with Syria that has killed 17 troops and left 19 kidnapped.

Hours after his arrival, a military source said troops had begun entering the restive town of Arsal for the first time since the fighting erupted a week ago.

Hariri’s trip follows his announcement that Saudi Arabia, one of his chief allies, would give $1 billion to shore up the army and security forces against jihadists.

His return to Lebanon also underscores the seriousness of the clashes in the Arsal region in eastern Lebanon on the Syrian border.

Fighting that began there on August 1 has eased, and a military source said Friday night that the army has “started to enter” Arsal, setting up a checkpoint and advancing slowly.

But earlier, residents who tried to return to their homes were fired on by snipers and it remained unclear whether gunmen had withdrawn from the town.

Sunni clerics have mediated a truce under which the militants agreed to return to Syria, and talks are continuing over the release of 17 policemen and 19 soldiers being held hostage.

The violence in Arsal is the worst in the border region since the Syrian war began in March 2011.

Despite Beirut’s effort to insulate itself from the war next door, the fighting has spilled over and stoked existing political and sectarian tensions in Lebanon.

Much of Lebanon’s Sunni community, including Hariri, supports the Sunni-dominated uprising against President Bashar Assad.

But many Lebanese Shiites support Assad, and the powerful Shiite Hizbollah movement has sent fighters to bolster his troops against the uprising.

Hariri, 44, has voiced unconditional support for Lebanon’s army, but some of his constituents accuse the army of allowing Hizbollah free rein to fight in Syria and failing to protect Sunnis.

“Our choice is to support the state and to help the army and the security forces, even if some mistakes have been made,” he said in a statement Friday evening, after meeting members of his Future movement.

“If Hizbollah acts in a way that harms Lebanon, it doesn’t mean similarly mistakes should be made in response, or that the backbone of the state and its prestige should be broken,” he added.

Hizbollah is Hariri’s chief political rival, with several of its members accused of assassinating his father, former prime minister Rafiq Hariri in 2005.

The party’s representatives also brought down Saad Hariri’s government in 2011 by resigning, after which he went into exile.

His departure has left the Sunni community with little leadership on the ground, even as the Syrian conflict has stoked tensions.

Many in Lebanon, including Hariri and his supporters, accuse Hizbollah of embroiling the country in Syria’s war by fighting alongside Assad.

But Hizbollah says it is fighting next door to prevent the spread of extremist Islamists into Lebanon.

$1 billion in Saudi aid 

The fighting in Arsal erupted last Saturday afternoon, when gunmen attacked soldiers after the arrest of a Syrian man accused of belonging to Al Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate Al Nusra Front.

It prompted army chief General Jean Kahwaji to urge France to speed up delivery of weapons being bought under a $3 billion deal financed by Saudi Arabia.

On Wednesday, Hariri announced the new $1 billion in Saudi aid, and he said Friday he was working with the government and military on how best to disperse the money.

Analysts said Hariri’s trip was intended to rally the Sunni community around the army and bolster his standing in Lebanon.

“Hariri’s return can be seen as an attempt at unifying the Sunni community both around Lebanese state institutions, particularly the army, as well as around Saudi Arabia, which is now championing itself as a major counterterrorism force in the region,” said Lina Khatib, director of the Carnegie Middle East Centre.

“Such a rallying of Sunnis would have a stabilising effect on the country and detach the Sunni community from being attracted to the extremism presented by groups” such as the Islamic State, she said.

Khatib added that Hariri was also “striving to regain a central political standing in Lebanon as the country looks forward to holding parliamentary and presidential elections”.

BEIRUT — Fighters identified as Islamists crossed into Lebanon from Syria on Saturday, triggering an exchange of fire with Lebanese villagers who forced them back across the border, Lebanese security sources and a villager said.

The gun battle near the village of Kfar Qouq followed a battle between gunmen and Syrian security forces on the other side of frontier, the sources said. It was not immediately clear if there were any casualties.

Kfar Qouq is near the Bekaa Valley town of Rashaya and some 100km south of the border town of Arsal that was seized last Saturday by Islamists who crossed from Syria. That incursion was the most serious spillover yet of Syria’s three-year-long civil war into Lebanon.

Dozens of people were killed in five days of fighting between the army and the militants who included Islamists affiliated to the Islamic State, which has seized territory in Syria and Iraq.

The militants pulled out of Arsal to the mountainous border zone on Thursday, taking with them 19 captive soldiers. Militant sources told Reuters on Friday they sought to exchange them for Islamists held in Lebanese jails.

CAIRO — An Egyptian court on Saturday dissolved the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), the political wing of the banned Muslim Brotherhood, dealing a crippling blow in the campaign to crush Egypt’s oldest Islamist movement.

A court banned the Muslim Brotherhood itself in September, but that ruling did not mention its political wing, leaving open the possibility it could be allowed to run in parliamentary elections, due late this year.

Saturday’s supreme administrative court ruling excludes the Brotherhood from formal participation in electoral politics, potentially forcing the movement underground, particularly as it has lost the sympathy of large swathes of the public.

The court’s ruling called for the FJP to be dissolved and its assets seized by the state. Its decision is final and cannot be appealed, a judicial source said.

The FJP’s lawyer called the ruling political and said it was unconstitutional to deprive the defence of the right to appeal.

“The legal reasons given do not justify this ruling but this is a political decision to get rid, not just of the Freedom and Justice Party, but of all the parties that were established after the revolution of January 25, 2011,” lawyer Mahmoud Abou Al Aynayn told Reuters.

“I expect other parties to be dissolved too.”

The Muslim Brotherhood, once Egypt’s oldest, best organised and most successful political movement, has seen hundreds of its members killed and thousands detained since then-army chief Abdel Fattah Al Sisi overthrew elected president and Brotherhood member Mohamed Morsi 13 months ago, following weeks of protest.

Morsi, who ruled for a year, and other Brotherhood officials were rounded up in the wake of his ousting and hundreds have been sentenced to death in mass court rulings that have drawn criticism from Western governments and human rights groups.

Sisi, who went on to win a presidential election in May, vowed during his campaign the Brotherhood would cease to exist under his rule.

Clampdown

The FJP was established in June 2011, in the aftermath of the uprising that removed Hosni Mubarak from power after 30 years and inspired hopes for more pluralistic politics in Egypt.

It went on to win parliamentary and presidential elections, but many Egyptians became disillusioned with Morsi after he gave himself sweeping powers and mismanaged the economy, taking to the streets in protest and prompting the army move against him.

But the leading lights of the 2011 uprising, many of them secular youth activists, have also found themselves on the wrong side of the new political leadership, many of them receiving long sentences for breaching a new anti-protest law by taking part in small and peaceful gatherings.

The government accuses the Brotherhood of inciting violence and terrorism. Egypt’s state and private media now portray the Brotherhood as a terrorist group and an enemy of the state.

GAZA CITY — Israeli warplanes pounded targets in Gaza Saturday, a day after killing at least five Palestinians, and fighters fired dozens of rockets into Israel after attempts to extend a three-day truce stalled.

The month-long conflict flared once again after mediators tried but failed to extend a ceasefire that expired at 0500 GMT Friday as Palestinian fighters shattered the quiet with pre-dawn rocket attacks.

But the United States said it still hoped that a new ceasefire could be in place soon.

“Our hope is that the parties will agree to an extension of the ceasefire in the coming hours,” State Department spokesperson Marie Harf told reporters.

Egypt, which is mediating between Israelis and Palestinians, insisted negotiations were making progress and urged a new truce but Israel recalled its delegation and warned it would not negotiate under fire.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the military to retaliate “forcefully” and blamed the Islamist movement Hamas for breaching the ceasefire.

Palestinian fighters fired 40 rockets into Israel, injuring one civilian and a soldier, the army said.

“In response, we struck 51 terror sites and targeted three terrorists in Gaza,” a military statement said, without elaborating.

The violence ended the 72-hour lull in fighting. 

Israel’s aggression on Gaza has killed at least 1,898 Palestinians. The United Nations says at least 1,354 of the Palestinians killed since July 8 were civilians, including 447 children.

Israel says some 67 Israelis were killed, almost all soldiers.

In Gaza, fighting died down in the early hours of Saturday but Israel carried out a number of attacks, mainly on areas from which the population has fled, an AFP correspondent said.

Rocket fire on Israel stopped Friday at 1800 GMT, according to the Israeli army.

Five Palestinians were killed and at least 31 others wounded in Friday’s air strikes, said Ashraf Al Qudra, Gaza’s emergency services spokesperson. Among the dead was a 10-year-old boy.

Some Palestinian families who had returned home trickled back to shelter in UN-run schools when Israeli air strikes resumed.

In Al Tuffah district of Gaza City, hundreds of refugees were seen living in classrooms, laundry hanging off balconies and a scrum of people queuing for UN food handouts.

“Of course we’re all scared, I’m scared, my children are scared, my wife is scared,” Abdullah Abdullah, 33, told AFP at the school.

In southern Israel, the army banned gatherings larger than 500 people within 40 kilometres of Gaza and said kindergarten and summer camps could only operate if there was a bomb shelter nearby.

In Gaza, the interior ministry said Israeli warplanes struck targets in Jabaliya in the north, Gaza City and in the centre of the Palestinian enclave.

Israel said it was targeting “terror sites”.

It first launched an air campaign on July 8, followed nine days later by a ground offensive designed to destroy Hamas’ arsenal of rockets and its network of attack tunnels stretching into Israel.

“We will continue to strike Hamas, its infrastructure, its operatives and restore security for the state of Israel,” said army spokesperson Lt. Col. Peter Lerner.

Meanwhile, violent protests against Israel’s offensive erupted Friday across the occupied West Bank, where two Palestinians were killed and dozens wounded in clashes with Israeli forces, Palestinian medical officials told AFP.

They said troops shot dead Mohammed Qatri, 19, near the Israeli settlement of Psagot, between occupied Jerusalem and the West Bank city of Ramallah.

Nader Edriss, 22, died Saturday morning in a hospital from wounds sustained during a protest in Hebron which also left dozens of others wounded, one seriously, by rubber bullets and live fire.

The army claimed that Qatri was one of a group that hurled rocks at soldiers and approached the settlement fence, ignoring orders to halt.

Elsewhere, Egypt called for an immediate return of the ceasefire and said progress had been made in the negotiations.

The head of a Palestinian delegation in Cairo said they were committed to achieving a truce.

“We told the Egyptians [mediators] we are sitting here to achieve a final agreement that restores the rights” of Palestinians, Azzam Al Ahmed told reporters.

Hamas and the Islamic Jihad group had rejected another 72-hour truce, accusing Israel of stalling.

“There had been an agreement on the vast majority of matters that are important to the Palestinian people, but some limited points remained undecided, a matter that should have led to an acceptance to renew the ceasefire,” the Egyptian foreign ministry said.

Hamas and Palestine Liberation Organisation officials laid out a number of demands, including the lifting of Israel’s eight-year blockade and the building of a sea port.

They also want Israel to free 125 key prisoners.

Despite withdrawing all its troops from Gaza by the time the truce began on Tuesday, Israel has retained forces along the border.