Israeli army says five-day cease-fire breached by Gaza rockets

Two rockets were reportedly fired from Gaza into Israel, apparently breaching a five-day ceasefire negotiated by Israeli and Palestinian negotiators hours earlier.

The Israeli army said on Twitter that one rocket had been intercepted, and another landed in Israel's southern Ashkelon area. 

"Gaza terrorists have breached the cease-fire & launched a rocket at Israel, hitting the Hof Ashkelon regional council," the tweet said. 

The five-day truce would have extended a 72-hour cease-fire that was set to expire, and was announced after Israeli and Palestinian negotiators failed to reach a long-term agreement at Cairo-mediated talks, Palestinian and Egyptian officials said on Wednesday.

"We have agreed to give more time for the negotiations," Azzam al-Ahmed, head of the Palestinian delegation in Cairo said on Wednesday.

The announcement came shortly before the previously agreed to 72-hour cease-fire was set to expire. 

An Egyptian official said Israel also accepted the proposal. Israel had earlier said it would back an extension of the lull.

More than a month of fighting has claimed the lives of more than 1,900 Palestinians — most of them civilians — and 67 people on the Israeli side.

Six people, including two journalists, were killed early Wednesday by an unexploded Israeli ordnance in the northern Gaza Strip, Health Ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qedra said, according to Israeli news website Haaretz. The Israeli navy fired warning shots at a Palestinian fishing boat off the southern coast of Gaza, but no injuries were reported.

Meanwhile, at least 57 Palestinians were arrested in Israeli night raids across occupied East Jerusalem, Palestinian news website Maan News reported Wednesday. Israeli police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said the men and boys were arrested in connection with recent "stone throwing incidents."

Area residents said Israeli police broke into homes without warning in the middle of the night an ransacked them before making arrests, Maan said.

Israeli and Palestinian negotiators were tight-lipped Wednesday about whether any agreement on a long-term end to hostilities was near. A Palestinian embassy source said that the talks were continuing and that Palestinian delegates would hold more meetings with Egyptian mediators.

A senior Israeli official told Agence France Presse new agency there was still a long way to go to agree to an end to the conflict, which erupted on July 8 when Israel launched military operations to halt cross-border rocket fire from Gaza.

"The negotiations are difficult and grueling," a Palestinian official said of Monday's opening talks, which lasted almost 10 hours.

Tuesday's talks, which began in the afternoon and tackled core issues such as Israel's eight-year blockade of Gaza, went on late into the night. The two sides are not meeting face to face. Israel regards Hamas as a terrorist organization that cannot be a direct negotiating partner.

Earlier Tuesday, an Israeli official played down the chances of success in the talks.

"The gaps are still very wide. There has not been progress in the negotiations," he told Agence France Presse.

Hamas, the Palestinian group that runs Gaza, wants Israel to lift the blockade it imposed on the enclave in 2006 before it will stop rocket attacks. 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 said it will facilitate Gaza's reconstruction only if the enclave and Hamas are fully disarmed.

Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon, speaking Tuesday, told Israel's armed forces to prepare for a possible resumption of fighting. A previous 72-hour cease-fire last week expired without a longer-term deal, and Palestinian rocket attacks and Israeli airstrikes resumed, although at lower intensity.

"It could be that shooting will erupt again and we will again be firing at them," Yaalon said.

The heavy losses among civilians and the destruction of thousands of homes in Gaza — where the United Nations said 425,000 people out of its 1.8 million residents have been displaced by the fighting — have stoked international alarm.

The 72-hour cease-fire was the second in the latest fighting. The first came about only after Israel announced it had completed the destruction of a network of Hamas tunnels that crossed into Israeli territory.

Israel is preparing to build a network of sensors to try to detect tunnel building past the Strip's border, but it could take months to prove the technology works, a senior army officer told Reuters.

In the meantime, the army might reinvade to destroy any tunnels that it discovers or that it thinks are under construction, another official said, looking to calm the fears of Israelis living close to the border with Gaza.

The army said it destroyed 32 tunnels last month but believes some, which also serve as bunkers and weapons caches, survived intact.

After more than a decade of failed attempts to develop ways to reveal the infiltration tunnels, an army officer said the military was preparing to place sensors along Gaza's perimeter.

The Israeli army hopes these will be able to detect not only tunnels under construction but also ones already built.

In a briefing for reporters, the officer, who declined to be named, said the sensors would be augmented by physical obstacles placed along the 42-mile frontier. He did not discuss the technology but said testing over the next few months would show whether it was ready for use. Previous experimentation has focused on seismic detectors. 

Also on Wednesday, Israel said in a statement that its state comptroller, Yosef Shapira, would conduct an inquiry into the military's actions during the fighting in Gaza, Haaretz reported.

"In light of claims that Israel allegedly violated the rules of international law and is not checking IDF [Israel Defense Forces] actions as required by international law, State Comptroller Judge (ret.) Yosef Shapira has decided to launch an inquiry into the decision-making processes on the military and political level during Operation Protective Edge and the inspection and investigation mechanisms of the IDF and the government," the statement said.

Al Jazeera and wire services