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Hamas meets Egypt intelligence chief on Gaza truce

CAIRO: Hamas and Egyptian officials continued talks in Cairo on Tuesday night aimed at achieving a long-term truce in Gaza, as violence flared around the Palestinian enclave.Representatives of the Islamist movement that has controlled Gaza since seizing it 18 months ago met Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman, Cairo's pointman on Palestinian and Israeli affairs, hours after Gaza militants fired a rocket at an Israeli town.Israeli warplanes bombed smuggling tunnels on Gaza's border with Egypt in response and the Jewish state warned of the "severest riposte" to rocket fire. Hamas has said the group is ready to agree to a one-year truce with Israel, but has not ruled out an 18-month truce proposed by Egyptian mediators. The delegation met Suleiman in the morning and went into another round of talks in the evening. Salah al-Bardawil, a member of the delegation from Gaza, told a Palestinian news agency between sessions that the talks were "positive." Hamas had agreed to form committees with other Palestinian groups to oversee reconstruction of Gaza but had questions on Israeli restrictions on goods it would allow through its border crossings with Gaza, Ma'an news agency quoted him as saying.

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