WarSclerotic

Israeli soldier captured, 70 Palestinians reported dead in worst day of conflict, Washington Post, William Booth, Sudarsan Raghavan and Ruth Eglash, July 20, 2014

GAZA CITY — Seventy Palestinians were killed Sunday in a heavy bombardment of a Gaza neighborhood and 13 Israeli soldiers were slain inthe most intense day of fighting in Israel’s current offensive against Hamas fighters, officials said. The Hamas military also announced its fighters had captured an Israeli soldier.

Abu Obaida, a spokesman for the Al Qassam Brigades, appeared on Hamas TV to announce the soldier had been taken prisoner. Minutes later, there were fireworks in the streets and shouts of “God is great!” from loudspeakers in mosques.

An Israeli military spokeswoman said the army was investigating the claim.

A kidnapped Israeli soldier would represent a victory for Hamas and a difficult new challenge for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The last Israeli soldier abducted by Hamas was Gilad Shalit, who spent more than five years in captivity before being released in a controversial prisoner exchange in 2011 that freed 1027 Palestinian security prisoners, some of whom carried out terror attacks against Israeli civilians. Shalit was captured by Hamas operatives who tunneled into Israel and snatched the corporal.

Undeterred by Gaza conflict, 228 North American immigrants due

Nefesh B’Nefesh flight set for Tuesday with Americans, Canadians

By Stuart Winer July 20, 2014, 9:20 pm

via Undeterred by Gaza conflict, 228 North American immigrants due | The Times of Israel.

Over 200 new immigrants are expected to arrive in Israel later this week, undeterred by the prospect of beginning a new life in a country under rocket attack.

A special chartered flight by the Nefesh B’Nefesh organization is scheduled to land at Ben Gurion Airport Tuesday with 228 immigrants from the US and Canada, 100 of whom are children.

For some of the new arrivals, there was no question of turning back, despite the relentless rocket fire from the Gaza Strip on southern and central Israeli towns and cities since the start of the Israel Defense Force’s Operation Protective Edge on July 8.

Israel launched the military campaign to try to stem the insistent rocket fire by Palestinian terrorists in Gaza.

“Cancelling or postponing our trip was never an option,” said Sarah Bergman, 31 of Waterbury, Connecticut, who will be moving with her husband, Fred, 34 and children Eliyahu, 10; Zev, 8; Azriel, 6; and Elisheva, 2. “Even though we’re flying into a war zone, we’re just as excited as we always were.”

The immigration to Israel, called aliya in Hebew, was coordinated with the Immigrant Absorption Ministry, the Jewish Agency for Israel, Keren Kayemet L’Yisrael and JNF-USA.

A total of 29 families and 54 singles are slated to set out on Tuesday. Some are planning to live in the country’s north or south, regions that have borne the brunt of rocket attacks on Israel in the past.

“We are preparing our children by watching videos and talking about the situation,” added Bergman, who intends to settle in Even Shmuel, just 43 kilometers from the Gaza Strip, and within rocket range. “Our family is concerned, but this is where we’re going.”

Leaving nothing to chance, the Immigrant Absorption Ministry has prepared information leaflets for each of the travelers, explaining security measures to be taken in Israel if a rocket siren goes off. In addition, the Home Front Command also provided information, in English, explaining how to talk to children about the current security situation.

Earlier this month, 64 new immigrants also arrived from the US to live in Israel.

Founded in 2002, the Nefesh B’Nefesh organization has worked with the Israeli government to bring some 40,000 North American immigrants to Israel.

Kerry’s rocky tour of the talk show circuit capped a tumultuous week around the world, Washington Post, Philip Bump, July 20, 2014

(This is from the Washington Post. Even the GIF picture at the top looks like a cartoon. — DM)

As soon as Fox News’ Chris Wallace told John Kerry that he was going to play a clip that the network had recorded while he was off-air, Kerry’s face dropped. Literally. You can see Kerry’s composition change entirely over the course of about 10 seconds.

The snippet Wallace presented showed Kerry on the phone with an aide saying, “It’s a hell of a pinpoint operation” — a comment that appears to be ironically disparaging Israel’s claims that its military incursion into Gaza was tightly tailored. When Fox returned to Kerry to get his response, he seemed flustered.

The interview had already gone poorly. Wallace challenged Kerry on the administration’s response to Russia after the crash of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17. He accused Kerry and President Obama of having backtracked on a pledge to impose new sanctions on Iran if an existing deal expired before a new one could be reached (the deadline expired Sunday). At one point, Wallace interrupted one of Kerry’s answers, prompting the secretary to angrily accuse the host of wanting to ask questions but not hear answers. And then Wallace played that clip.

Kerry appeared on ABC, NBC, CBS, and CNN as well, but none of the other appearances went as poorly as the one with Wallace, perhaps predictably. (Kerry, as part of his answer to Wallace on Iran: “I know you and others don’t ever want to give the Obama administration credit for almost anything.”) But in each case, Kerry was asked to explain how the administration was responding to the Flight 17 crash and how it planned to help bring fighting in the Gaza Strip to an end.

To each host, Kerry repeated similar, if not always satisfactory, responses. In the first case, the administration would continue to enforce sanctions on Russia, given its support for the insurrection in Ukraine and apparent culpability in the attack on the Malaysian jet. It would also call on Europe to impose harsher restrictions on Russia, with Kerry calling the attack a “wake-up call” for Europeans who have much stronger economic ties with Russia.

As for Israel, Kerry suggested that the United States would continue to work for a cease-fire to end hostilities in the Gaza Strip. With the exception of Wallace’s hot-mike surprise, Kerry was in sync with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Netanyahu told CNN and ABC that the increasing death toll among civilians in Gaza was the fault of Hamas and that his forces would end operations in the area once it had destroyed all of what he called Hamas’s “terror tunnels,” — which run from Gaza into Israel.

On NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) had free rein to blast Kerry’s responses. “The Europeans are never going to lead on this issue,” he said, criticizing Kerry’s suggestion that Europe play a larger role. Overall, Graham said, Kerry “gave the most ridiculous and delusional summary of American foreign policy I could imagine. It scares me that he believes the world is in such good shape. … Leading from behind is not working. The world is adrift. And President Obama has become the king of indecision.”

Kerry, as the face of the administration’s efforts to exert American influence internationally, was never likely to have had an easy go of it this morning, given the complexity of what’s happening in Ukraine and Israel. Iran, a critical administration priority, barely warranted a mention in most discussions, given the urgency of events in the other two countries. But Kerry, to his visibly apparent dismay, ended up inadvertently making his day much worse.

Does Obama Realize the Stakes in Gaza? Commentary Magazine, Jonathan S. Tobin, July 20, 2014

(Unless it penetrates his echo chamber, which it rarely does, President Obama seems to have little comprehension of what’s happening or how it affects U.S. citizens or the few remaining U.S. allies. If he did understand, would he care? — DM)

After weeks of waiting patiently for the rockets to stop before ordering troops into Gaza in what is still a limited campaign, Netanyahu may be waking up to the fact that the stakes have been altered in the conflict. There are signs, albeit tentative ones, that his government is realizing that nothing short of ending the Hamas’s control of Gaza will end the current nightmare in which much of the Israeli population is being forced to take shelter from rocket fire.

The best thing the U.S. could do to both stop the fighting and help the Palestinians trapped in Hamas’s deadly game would be to signal to the Islamists and their foreign allies that it is prepared to support an Israeli campaign that will oust them from Gaza and replace them with Fatah. Perhaps if they understood that their survival is at stake, the euphoria among the Hamas leadership about their “victories” will abate and quiet will follow. But unless that happens, it will soon be time for Israel and the U.S. to realize that they must adjust their strategies to account for their new, higher stakes in Gaza.

After two weeks of fighting along the border with Gaza, there is a growing sense that the Israeli government is starting to realize that its assumptions about how to obtain Prime Minister Netanyahu’s goal of “sustainable quiet” may have been all wrong. But if the Israelis are being forced reluctantly to reassess their beliefs about how Hamas could be forced to stop shooting, the question remains whether the Obama administration is up to speed about the changing rules in the conflict.

Up until now both Israel and the U.S. have thought Hamas would eventually stop firing rockets at cities or sending terrorists across the borders if Israel struck back hard enough. That is not to say that the two allies saw eye-to-eye about every aspect of the conflict, since the Obama administration clearly believed that Israel should respond to rocket attacks or other forms of terrorism with limited counter-attacks that would do nothing to significantly impair Hamas’s arsenal or its ability to re-ignite the border if it wished. But both governments were prepared to leave Hamas in place in Gaza since the cost of removing it was considered prohibitively high and there didn’t appear to be a viable alternative. Israel’s standing offer of “quiet for quiet” was usually enough for the Islamists once they had fired enough rockets to show Palestinians that they were still the address for “resistance” to the Israelis.

But now it appears that Hamas is prepared to bank on the assumption that nothing they do–no matter how bloody or unreasonable, such as a continuous shooting of rockets at Israeli cities and cross-border infiltration attempts–would be enough to convince the Israelis that they were not better off allowing the Islamist terror group to remain in power. Though Hamas’s long-range goals remain the overthrow of their erstwhile Fatah partners in the Palestinian Authority and to gain control of the West Bank and to destroy Israel, their immediate objectives in the current outbreak are different. They want to force Egypt to open its borders and the smuggling tunnels to Gaza as well as to get the Israelis to release more terrorist prisoners.

As Avi Isacharoff writes in the Times of Israel, though the Israelis are winning in a tactical sense because its Iron Dome missile defense has frustrated the rocket attacks and their army is making progress in eliminating some of Hamas terrorist infrastructure, Hamas thinks it is winning the war. Their confidence rests in a belief that sooner or later the Israelis will be forced to stop by international pressure that will build as a result of the deaths of Palestinian civilians that are being deliberately jeopardized by Hamas tactics. At the same time, they think the pressure from the Arab world will also eventually force Egypt to give them what they want. As Isacharoff notes, the real battle lines are not so much between the Israel Defense Forces and the terrorists but between Hamas and its foreign allies Qatar and Turkey and the loose coalition of Egypt, Jordan, and the Palestinian Authority. Hamas thinks Egypt will fold and end their isolation if the pile of the compatriots is piled high enough:

In a meeting with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in Cairo on Wednesday, Moussa Abu Marzouk, the deputy head of Hamas’s political bureau, dismissed Abbas’s pleas regarding a ceasefire, explaining that “what are 200 martyrs compared with lifting the siege [on the Gaza Strip?]” Abu Marzouk later tweeted that there will be no truce that does not acknowledge the demands of the “resistance,” and that it is “better that Israel occupy the Gaza Strip than for the siege to continue.” Abu Marzouk, needless to say, resides in Cairo, far from the threat of Israeli air strikes.

Seen from that perspective, there is virtually nothing Israel can do to quiet the border. So long as Hamas thinks it can count on Israeli caution and pressure from the U.S. and the international community to ensure that it remains in control of the strip, the fighting will continue until the terrorists get what they want. After weeks of waiting patiently for the rockets to stop before ordering troops into Gaza in what is still a limited campaign, Netanyahu may be waking up to the fact that the stakes have been altered in the conflict. There are signs, albeit tentative ones, that his government is realizing that nothing short of ending the Hamas’s control of Gaza will end the current nightmare in which much of the Israeli population is being forced to take shelter from rocket fire.

Israel would be forced to pay a terrible price if it chose to re-occupy the strip, oust Hamas, capture its rocket arsenal, and destroy the vast network of tunnels and bunkers that have turned it into a terrorist Gibraltar. That price would be paid in the blood of Israeli soldiers and the Palestinians that are being used as human shields. Hamas’s assumption is that the Israeli people would not be willing to endure such casualties and the world wouldn’t tolerate such a military operation.

Writing from Jerusalem, it’s difficult to judge whether their assumptions about Israeli opinion still hold. There is no doubt that if the death toll rises, the number of left-wing demonstrators against Netanyahu will increase as will public unease about the conflict. But Hamas’s great “victory”–the fact that so many Israelis have been forced into shelters–also works against their belief that they have impunity. If air strikes and a limited ground operation don’t end the threat to their security, Netanyahu would probably not be wrong in thinking that he will have sufficient support to sustain a counter-attack that will finish Hamas once and for all.

Thus rather than continuing to carp from the sidelines at Israeli efforts or wasting more time in pointless diplomacy that does nothing to shake Hamas’s assumptions about the strength of its position, it is time for the United States to wake up and realize that its interests are also at stake in this battle. President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry must understand that what is truly an “unsustainable status quo” is not the Israeli control of the West Bank but Hamas’s hold on Gaza. If there is ever to be any hope for a two-state solution–and admittedly, that hope is so faint these days as to be barely alive–it must begin with Hamas’s complete defeat and its replacement in Gaza by more moderate forces. Nothing short of that will end the bloodshed or begin the process whereby Israelis might be convinced that a withdrawal from the West Bank would not create another, even more lethal Hamasistan on their borders.

The best thing the U.S. could do to both stop the fighting and help the Palestinians trapped in Hamas’s deadly game would be to signal to the Islamists and their foreign allies that it is prepared to support an Israeli campaign that will oust them from Gaza and replace them with Fatah. Perhaps if they understood that their survival is at stake, the euphoria among the Hamas leadership about their “victories” will abate and quiet will follow. But unless that happens, it will soon be time for Israel and the U.S. to realize that they must adjust their strategies to account for their new, higher stakes in Gaza.

Thirteen IDF Golani soldiers killed in Gaza, at start of urban stage of Israel’s operation against Hamas, DEBKAfile, July 20, 2014

(Qatar seems to have taken over the cease-fire franchise from Egypt, on behalf of Hamas. — DM)

US Secretary of State John Kerry changed his mind about visiting the region for the second time this month, when the Obama administration decided to stay out of it and let Egypt handle the crisis. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who scheduled a visit for Saturday, postponed it indefinitely.

The IDF Golani Brigades lost 13 soldiers in combat with Hamas early Sunday, July 20, in the Gaza Strip district of Shejayia, the military spokesman announced Sunday evening. The unit’s commander, Col. Rosan Aliyan, was seriously injured. The urban stage of the IDF’s Operation Defensive Edge has taken Israel into one of its most perilous wars, launched as Hamas’ rocket barrage against the Israeli population continued without pause.

After accepting a brief truce, that was requested and then violated by Hamas, Israeli forces went back to the operation begun overnight in the Hamas Sheijaya stronghold, which bristles with large rocket stocks and arms factories and is the site of concealed openings of terrorist tunnels that snake under the border into Israel 2 km away to a point opposite Kibbutz Nahal Oz.

Still ahead of the Israeli operation, after the troops finish cleansing Shejaiya are similar challenges to dismantle Hamas’ offensive capabilities in another three of their Gaza City strongholds: Shaati, Al Bureij and Nuseirat, before Hamas’ terrorist infrastructure can be said to have been disarmed.

IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz praised the Israeli units fighting in the Gaza Strip and pledged they will carry on for as long as necessary, until Israel is safe from Hamas terror. While regretting the loss of Palestinian civilian life, Gen. Gantz held Hamas responsible for the innocent casualties, by forcing them to stay in place in spite of Israel’s warnings to them to escape. Hamas could have provided the population with shelters, schools and hospitals, instead of investing in rockets and tunnels for Israel’s destruction, he said.

During Sunday, July 20, Israeli commanders rejected, then accepted, a Hamas request relayed via the Red Cross for a three-hour truce for the removal of its dead and wounded from the embattled Shejaiya district. The Palestinians reported 60 dead and 200 injured in Sunday’s battles there.

The truce was extended by two hours, despite attacks by armed Hamas bands on Israeli troops, in breach of the ceasefire, which was the third Israel had accepted in the 12 days of its Gaza operation.

Earlier, DEBKAfile reported that the IDF tried to mitigate the bad news from Hamas warfront by releasing it in stages:  first, the four soldiers killed Saturday night and later, the 13 Golani fighters.

The first four were Maj. Amotz Greenberg, 45, from Hod Hashorn and Sgt. Adar Bresani, 20, from Nahariya, were shot dead Saturday when their jeep was attacked by Hamas infiltrators bursting out of a tunnel.

On the Gaza battlefield, Paratrooper Staff Sgt. Bana Roval, 20, from Holon, was shot dead by a terrorist from another tunnel, and 2nd Lt, Bar Rahav, 21, from Ramat Yishai, was killed by a missile defense system in a nearby tank.

Hamas is not only bringing its deadly tunnels into play, but also planting small commando units heavily armed with anti-tank rockets across the paths of advancing Israeli armored forces.

Saturday, those commandos fired 10 anti-tank rockets. Without their Windbreaker armor, many tanks would have been destroyed and the casualty toll much higher.

However, most of all, Hamas is fighting to save its tunnel system from systematic destruction by IDF demolition teams. This system was designed to be the Palestinian Islamists’ highest strategic asset, comparable in importance to the IDF’s chain of fortifications along the Syrian border.

Around 16,000 men, around 15 percent of Hamas’ fighting strength, were assigned to the tunnel project in the last five years and substantial funds. The IDF will not be permitted to demolish this flagship project without a savage fight.

The most important conclusion for Israel’s war planners, from the first days of the ground phase of Israel’s Operation Defensive Edge, is that Hamas is standing firm and not cracking, even under the relentless pounding of their military infrastructure by Israeli artillery and air might, and appears determined to fight on.

Its commanders believe they can keep going for another 4 to 6 weeks, while also maintaining a steady hail of rockets against the Israeli population.

This estimate has spurred a major buildup of Israeli military strength for the Gaza operation. Another 50,000 reservists were called up Saturday night and a large number of infantry brigades started moving into the Gaza Strip overnight and will continue to arrive Sunday. The extra forces have made it possible to embark on the second, urban stage of the IDF operation, the breaching of the densely-populated towns.

A different type of combat lies ahead from the project for destroying tunnels. It is tougher and more perilous. But there is no other way to reach Hamas’ command centers and its longest-range rockets.

With this mission still unaccomplished, talk of a ceasefire sounds as though it comes from another planet. Hamas feels strong and confident enough to spurn the Egyptian-Israeli ceasefire proposal, which is firmly backed by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Every attempt to sway its political leader Khaled Meshaal, when he was buttonholed in Kuwait, ran into a blank wall. He summarily rejected invitations from Egypt and the Arab League to travel to Cairo and discuss the cessation of hostilities.

The various international mediation efforts have therefore nowhere to go.

As far as Hamas is concerned, no incentive has been offered tempting enough to persuade its leaders to give up their predestined war on Israel.

US Secretary of State John Kerry changed his mind about visiting the region for the second time this month, when the Obama administration decided to stay out of it and let Egypt handle the crisis. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who scheduled a visit for Saturday, postponed it indefinitely.

Israel has accordingly won a rare opportunity to deal with Hamas without being stopped short and the enemy saved by international intervention. But although it has wide popular support, this opportunity confronts Israelis with one of the cruelest, costly and drawn-out conflicts in their embattled history.

Qatar hosts Gaza ceasefire talks with Abbas, UN chief, Ynet News, July 20, 2014

(Strangely, the proposed cease-fire plan would not require Israel to replace, in cash or in kind, any of the missiles fired at Israel. How did they miss that? Might it be included in the “Plan to rehabilitate Gaza?”– DM)

Western diplomatic sources see Qatar as a strategic player in reaching an effective ceasefire deal as the wealthy Gulf state plays host to a large number of exiled Islamists from across the Middle East, including Hamas leader Mashal.

The senior Qatari source added that Abbas is also due to meet with Meshaal following his meeting with the United Nations chief.

“Qatar will not put any pressure on Hamas to reduce or change their demands, Qatar is only acting as a communication channel,” the source said.

Egyptian newspaper Aharam reported that Secretary of State Kerry will arrive in Cairo on Saturday to aid the mediation efforts.

Qatar will host a meeting between Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Sunday in attempt to reach a ceasefire agreement with Israel to bring an end to 12 days of warfare, a senior Qatari source told Reuters.

Due to take place in Doha, the meeting will be headed by the Gulf state’s emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, who has been acting as a “channel of communication” between Hamas and the international community, said the senior source familiar with the matter.

“Qatar has presented Hamas’s requests to the international community, the list has been presented to France and to the UN, the talks tomorrow will be to further negotiate these conditions.”

Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, has rejected Egyptian efforts to end fighting that has killed more than 300 Palestinians, mostly civilians, saying any deal must include an end to a blockade of the coastal area and a recommitment to a ceasefire reached in an eight-day war there in 2012.

France’s Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said after talks with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday that attempts to reach a ceasefire had failed.

Fabius, who flew to Israel after talks in Egypt and Jordan, told reporters after meeting with Netanyahu: “Sadly I can say that the call for a ceasefire has not been heard, and on the contrary, there’s a risk of more civilian casualties that worries us.”

Western diplomatic sources see Qatar as a strategic player in reaching an effective ceasefire deal as the wealthy Gulf state plays host to a large number of exiled Islamists from across the Middle East, including Hamas leader Mashal.

The senior Qatari source added that Abbas is also due to meet with Meshaal following his meeting with the United Nations chief.

“Qatar will not put any pressure on Hamas to reduce or change their demands, Qatar is only acting as a communication channel,” the source said.

Egypt said on Saturday it had no plans to revise the ceasefire proposal, which Hamas has already rejected. And on the other hand a Hamas source in Doha said the group has no plans to change their conditions to ceasefire.

“We want the rights of our people, Palestinians on the ground are supporting us and we will get them back their rights,” said the source.

In the meantime, Egypt seems to decided to attempt to bring Hamas to the table and have reportedly invited Hamas political bureau chief Mashal to Cairo for a visit during which it will propose a new initiative for a ceasefire with Israel.

The initiative reportedly includes ensuring Israel’s security through cooperation with international parties while at the same time relieving the siege of Gaza, one of Hamas’ top demands, the Egyptian newspaper Al-Shuruk reported.

According to the report, Egypt delivered a message to Hamas that it is willing to release several Hamas prisoners as part of the ceasefire deal.

Egypt slammed Hamas after the organization rejected the Cairo truce initiative, and held the group responsible for the death of dozens of Palestinians.

“If Hamas had accepted the Egyptian proposal, it could save the lives of at least 40 Palestinians,” Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry said, according to official news agency Mena.

Despite giving Egypt the cold shoulder by turning to Qatar and Turkey for help in mediation, Hamas senior official in Cairo, Mousa Abu Marzook, was trying to cool the tensions.

“There is communication with Egypt. There are no ceasefire negotiations at the moment, but rather an exchange of opinions,” Abu Marzook said. He still believes Egypt is the one who can best serve as a mediator in this conflict.

He noted Hamas had no choice but to continue fighting at the moment. “We want to achieve something for the Palestinian people in Gaza. We don’t want to go back to square one.”

Hamas’ terms

1. An immediate ceasefire of both sides.

2. The halt to military and security attacks of all kinds from both sides.

3. Israel will commit itself to completely lift the land and sea blockade of the Gaza Strip:

• Israel will open all border crossing, as well as the Gaza Port, in order to allow the entrance of all goods, electricity, gas and any other Palestinian necessities.
• 12 miles will be added to the Gaza fishing zone.
• Palestinians will be allowed to move freely in the Gaza border area and there will be no buffer zone.

4. A plan to rehabilitate Gaza will be put into motion.

5. Undoing Operation Brother’s Keeper:

• Israel will complete its obligations from the Shalit deal, including the release of Palestinian prisoners who were freed as a part of the deal and re-arrested during the West Bank operation.
• Israel will end all collective punishments and actions against the Palestinians in the West Bank that were put in place since the kidnapping and murder of the three Israel teenagers.
• Israel will release all of the suspects arrested during the operation, among them the Speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council Aziz Duwaik.
• Israel will allow Hamas institutes in the West Bank that were shut down during the operation to reopen.
• Israel will return all public property it confiscated during the operation.

6. Israel will stop its administrative detentions policy and end punishments to Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.

The ceasefire will be put into effect in the following manner:

• A time will be set for the understandings to come into effect.
• The United States will act as guarantor to ensure the agreement is implemented according to a defined timetable, to safeguard the truce and to ensure there are no failures in the implementation of the agreement. If either side has reservations, it will turn to the United States.
• Both sides will halt fire within six hours from the time the agreement is accepted.

Egyptian newspaper Aharam reported that Secretary of State Kerry will arrive in Cairo on Saturday to aid the mediation efforts.