Fate of Gaza truce in balance as midnight deadline looms

The figures showed 2,016 people had been killed and 10,196 wounded.

Among the dead were 541 children, 250 women and 95 elderly men.

Separately, the Israeli army confirmed that five of its 64 dead soldiers were killed by “friendly fire”.

Despite concern over the looming deadline, the streets of Gaza City were bustling with women and children shopping for food as men sat outside in the shade.

With the negotiations in their final stretch, meetings at the Egyptian intelligence headquarters resumed at 1200 GMT, but there was little indication that either side was willing to back down on its demands.

“The fifth day of the ceasefire and the negotiations between the resistance and the Zionist enemy ends today,” Hamas’s exiled deputy leader Mussa Abu Marzuk wrote on Facebook shortly before the talks began.

“No positive results until now. Everything will be decided on the ground.”

Netanyahu has said Israel would only accept an agreement which contained “a clear answer” to its security needs, while Hamas has insisted there will be no deal without an end to Israel’s eight-year blockade on Gaza.

The talks are centred on an Egyptian proposal for a lasting ceasefire, which postpones discussions on the thorniest issues, such as Hamas demands for a port and airport in Gaza, for another month.

Negotiations on exchanging the remains of two Israeli soldiers for the release of Palestinian prisoners would also be delayed for a month.

Following talks with Meshaal in Doha, Abbas will travel to Cairo later in the week to meet Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, a Palestinian official told AFP.

In an indication Israel was shifting its thinking away from a negotiated truce agreement, it began implementing a series of unilateral measures to ease conditions in Gaza.

On Sunday, Israel said it had lifted a total ban on fishing which had been in place since July 8, allowing boats to go out to sea for up to three nautical miles.

Down at the fishing port, a few fishermen could be seen taking their boats out for an early catch, although they kept close to shore, well within the new limit, an AFP correspondent said.