President Mahinda Rajapaksa says Sri Lanka will be providing 1 million US Dollars in financial assistance to Palestine.

The Presidential Media Unit said the Head of State has been a long-time supporter of the Palestinian cause and is the Founder President of the Sri Lanka Committee for Solidarity with Palestine.

During the Eid Festival Week, President Rajapaksa had expressed concern over the violence in Gaza, tweeting, “It is my hope that the violence in Gaza is halted and peace prevails in the region.” President

Rajapaksa said on his Twitter account. Earlier in July, President Mahinda Rajapaksa also called his Palestinian counterpart Mahmoud Abbas to inquire about the situation in Gaza.

In January, President Rajapaksa made his first visit to Palestine on his tour of the region that also included Jordan and Israel. During that visit and the Government of Palestine conferred President Rajapaksa with the “Star of Palestine” – the highest award of the State of Palestine.

Sri Lanka recognised Palestine as a state in 1988.

Israel has agreed to extend the ongoing ceasefire with the Gaza-ruling Hamas movement, the Egyptian state TV reported late on Wednesday, August 6.

“Israel has announced willingness to extend the current truce with neither conditions nor time limit,” said the Egyptian state TV.

Egypt is currently hosting Israeli and Palestinian delegations for talks on extending the ongoing Cairo-brokered “extendable” 72- hour humanitarian truce that started early Tuesday.

During the ongoing talks, the Palestinian delegation, including influential Hamas and the Islamic Jihad, conditioned a list of demands to be presented by the Egyptian leadership to the Israeli side.

These demands include a ceasefire, withdrawal of the Israeli forces from Gaza, lifting the Israeli blockade against the Strip, opening the border crossings and releasing Palestinian prisoners agreed-upon with Israel in a previous prisoner swap and holding an international donor conference for Gaza reconstruction.

On the Israeli side, its key demand is that Hamas be disarmed, in exchange for the rehabilitation of the Gaza Strip, an Israeli official told Xinhua.

But Hamas vehemently rejects the notion of disarmament and wishes for a long-term arrangement, mainly to end the blockade on the strip, the Army Radio quoted a Hamas member of the Palestinian delegation as saying earlier on Wednesday.

The Israeli offensive on the restive Gaza Strip that lasted for less than one month has left more than 1,850 Palestinians killed and over 9,550 wounded, while 64 Israeli soldiers and three civilians were killed in the conflict.

Cairo has lately been the destination of United States, European and Asian diplomats until the 72-hour humanitarian truce was reached. The Egyptian leadership is currently intensifying communications and talks to reach a permanent truce between the Palestinians and the Israelis.

Egypt brokered a truce between Hamas and Israel in 2012, during the one-year reign of former Islamist President Mohamed Morsi who was ousted by the military last year.

The journalist, Feras Khatib, was wearing a PRESS vest during the live report in the Arabic language when a man, apparently an Israeli, approached and violently shoved him sideways, as seen on the video posted on YouTube.

The attacker was quickly pulled away from camera view by another member of the BBC team, while Khatib continued his reporting.

The incident took place in Ashkelon, just north of Gaza, according to a BBC Arabic spokesman. The attacker reportedly left right after the incident.

Khatib “was manhandled by an angry Israeli…Feras was unharmed and will continue reporting as normal,” the channel said in a statement.

Meanwhile, Al Jazeera’s office in Gaza was fired at on Tuesday. The network blames Israel for the attack. “Two very precise shots were fired straight into our building,” Al Jazeera’s Stefanie Dekker said. “We are high up in the building so we had a very strong vantage point over the area. But we have evacuated.”

Tuesday saw the Gaza conflict move into its third week. According to the Gaza Health Ministry, the number of Palestinians killed has risen to 633 – the vast majority of whom are civilians.

Overall, five mosques, a sports stadium, and the home of a deceased Hamas military chief were hit on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, 29 Israelis have been killed – two of them civilians. Two soldiers were also killed on Tuesday, according to Tel Aviv. This death toll is the highest number of Israeli military deaths since the 2006 Lebanon war.

Sources: BBC/ Reuters

Diplomatic pressure for a ceasefire in Gaza increased on Saturday as the Palestinian death toll in the 11-day conflict climbed to more than 300 and at least 50,000 people had to flee their homes in the face of the Israeli military assault from ground, air and sea.

Two Israeli soldiers were killed in a cross-border attack by Hamasmilitants on Saturday, the army said. Military officials said four other soldiers were wounded in the raid by fighters who had used a concealed tunnel to reach Israel. One Hamas gunman was killed, while the rest of the group managed to escape back into Gaza.

Israel’s bombardment of Gaza intensified on Saturday night as a handful of areas were hit every few seconds with tank and rocket fire. With Israel suggesting that its ground offensive could last two weeks, the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, travelled to the region to add his weight to efforts to broker a truce between Israel and Hamas.

The Egyptian government restated a proposal it had made on Monday, which was accepted by Israel but dismissed by Hamas. Israel launched the ground invasion following Hamas’s rejection. “This initiative still presents the chance for the two sides to cease fire, ending the bloodshed,” said Egypt’s foreign minister, Sameh Shukri. “It meets the needs of both sides. We will continue to propose it. We hope both sides accept it.” Laurent Fabius, the French foreign minister, said a ceasefire was “an urgent imperative”, adding that his government fully backed the Egyptian initiative, which is also supported by the Arab League. “The absolute priority is a ceasefire, but it must guarantee a lasting truce,” Fabius said in Cairo, after meeting the Egyptian president, Abdul Fatah al-Sisi.

Hamas has refused to agree to a ceasefire without preconditions on the release of prisoners arrested in the West Bank and the opening of crossings from Gaza to Egypt and Israel. Senior Hamas official Ghazi Hamad told Channel 4 News on Saturday that Hamas would continue to fire rockets until Israel agreed to its demands.

Qatar and Turkey, seen as allies of Hamas, were also attempting to broker a ceasefire, with the Qatari foreign minister, Khalid bin Mohammed al-Attiyah, reportedly tabling a proposal reflecting Hamas’s stance.

In Gaza, Israeli tanks and bulldozers were clearing a wide strip of land inside the perimeter fence as troops continued to hunt for openings to cross-border tunnels dug by militants. The Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) said it had found more than a dozen tunnels since the ground offensive started. The UN said the number of internal refugees had more than doubled since the start of the invasion, to at least 50,000, with the number expected to rapidly rise. The World Food Programme was stepping up efforts to distribute supplies to Palestinian civilians caught in the fighting.

Thousands of pro-Palestinian demonstrators marched to the Israeli embassy in London , calling for an end to military action in Gaza.

- Guardian

First the Palestinian flag was draped from the team bus during the team’s triumphant open-top bus tour of the capital, now it has been claimed that the Algerian national football team are to donate their entire World Cup prize fund to the embattled people of Gaza.

According to quotes attributed to Algeria’s star striker Islam Slimani, the team will give up all of the estimated $9 million (£5.25 million) they received as valiant losers in the round of 16.

Yet speaking at a reception in Algiers where the team returned to a hero’s welcome yesterday, Slimani apparently said: “They need it more than us.” The announcement was reported by the Jordanian football writer Waleed Abu Nada as well as the Dutch daily newspaper Algemeen Dagblad.

If true, the team could face accusations of bringing politics to bear in the world of sport. Yesterday, YouTube footage of the team’s open-top homecoming tour through Algiers showed at least one Palestinian flag flying from the bus by the team.

Last month, Fifa announced it was to open disciplinary proceedings against Argentina after the team unfurled a political banner prior to a friendly match against Slovenia with the phrase “Las Malvinas son Argentinas”, which translates as “The Falkland Islands belong to Argentina”.

However, if reports of the donation are true, it will see Algeria gain a whole new set of fans beyond football. They were also the only African side to make it through past the group stages – and their reported willingness to give away the prize money is in stark contrast to the reported behaviour of the Cameroon, Ghana and Nigeria teams.

Algeria has traditionally been a strong ally of the Palestinian cause in the long-running Middle East dispute with Israel.

The crisis has intensified in recent days as Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu struggles to control a frenzied reaction to the murder of three Israeli hitch-hikers, which the country blames on Hamas.

Israel has begun sending troop reinforcements to its border with Gaza and begun intensifying air strikes, while more than a dozen Palestinian rockets struck southern Israel early this morning.

-Independent