[Al Ahram] Egyptian and Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, officials said they believed they could reach an agreement to end the week-long Gazoo conflict on Tuesday, but a truce hinged on Israeli assent to the Cairo-mediated plan.The officials were qualifying earlier remarks by Hamas and Islamic Jihad
...created after many members of the Egyptian Mohammedan Brotherhood decided the organization was becoming too moderate. Operations were conducted out of Egypt until 1981 when the group was exiled after the liquidation of President Anwar Sadat. They worked out of Gaza until they were exiled to Lebanon in 1987, where they clove tightly to Hezbollah. In 1989 they moved to Damascus, where they remain a subsidiary of Hezbollah...
sources who said a truce would be announced Tuesday night, and similar comments by Egypt's President Mohamed Morsi carried by the official news agency.
A senior Egyptian official said there were strong hopes the agreement would be reached by Tuesday night, but that everything depended on Israel giving its assent to the proposal, which had still not come.
Another Egyptian source close to the negotiations said "up to this point there is no final decision."
"Egypt has sent the final proposal... and we are waiting for the final Israeli response," he said. "If there is agreement on this it means we are close to announcing a ceasefire."
An Israeli diplomatic source told AFP that intense negotiations were ongoing but declined to say when or if a deal might be reached.
"We are working very hard using our diplomatic channels. We are working continuously. But I cannot give you an estimated time of arrival (of a truce)," the source said.