DHAKA: A Hamas team arrived in Cairo on Sunday for talks with Egyptian mediators on a possible truce in Gaza.

An airport official and state news agency MENA said, Turkish daily Hurriyet reports.

The delegation is led by senior Hamas official Ezzat al-Rishq, the sources said. Egypt, the traditional broker in conflicts between Israel and Hamas, had invited Israeli and Palestinian negotiators to gather in Cairo to thrash out a durable truce in Gaza based on an Egyptian ceasefire proposal.

Israel, however, has said it will not send anyone to the talks. ‘Hamas has proven that it breaches any agreement reached right away, as happened five times in previous truces,’ Israel’s deputy foreign minister Tzahi HaNegbi told media on Saturday.

‘It is therefore unclear at this stage what benefit Israel might see for participating in an attempt to reach agreements, based on the Egyptian initiative.’

Another Palestinian team, including the Palestinian spy chief Majid Faraj, arrived late on Saturday for the negotiations, which are expected to start later on Sunday.

Representatives of militant group Islamic Jihad are also expected in the Egyptian capital as is US Middle East envoy Frank Lowenstein and the Middle East Quartet’s peace envoy Tony Blair.

The talks will focus on ways to end the conflict in Gaza, which has so far claimed more than 1,700 Palestinian lives, mostly civilians, and displaced up to a quarter of the territory’s population.

Sixty-four Israeli soldiers have died since the Jewish state on July 8 launched an offensive to halt rocket fire from the Gaza Strip, the army’s heaviest toll since the 2006 war against the Lebanese Hezbollah.

The Palestinians are expected to press their demands for the end of an eight-year blockade of Gaza and the release of Palestinian prisoners.

BDST: 2000 HRS, AUG 03, 2014