DOHA
Israel has turned down a proposal for calm in the Gaza Strip made earlier by Turkey, Qatar and the United States, informed sources said.
They added early on Saturday that the proposed calm was approved by the Gaza-based Palestinian resistance movement Hamas.
Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu was in intensive contacts with his Qatari and American counterparts, on one hand, and with Hamas' political office chief Khaled Meshaal, who lives in the Qatari capital Doha, one of the other, all through Friday, one of the sources said.
He added that all parties involved in the contacts approved the proposed calm, which was later rejected by the Israeli government.
Davutoglu met with Meshaal in the Qatari capital on Thursday to listen to Hamas' conditions to agree to the calm and a subsequent ceasefire.
The source said Davutoglu and his Qatari counterpart had phrased the calm agreement and presented it to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry who notified Israel about it later.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called Kerry a short time later to tell him of Israel's rejection of the calm, the source said.
He added that contacts are still ongoing between Turkey, Qatar and the U.S. with the aim of bringing about a ceasefire in Gaza, one that is acceptable to all parties.
Since July 7, Israel has pounded the Gaza Strip with fierce aerial bombardments with the ostensible aim of halting rocket fire.
At least 869 Palestinians have been killed – mostly civilians – and more than 5730 others injured in Israel's ongoing offensive, now in its third week.
Gaza-based resistance factions, meanwhile, have continued to fire rocket at Israeli cities in response to relentless Israeli bombardments.
According to official Israeli figures, 35 Israeli soldiers and three civilians have been killed since the hostilities began.
Israel's military operation, dubbed operation "Protective Edge," is the self-proclaimed Jewish state's third major offensive against the densely-populate Gaza Strip – which is home to some 1.8 million Palestinians – within the last six years.
In 2008/9, over 1500 Palestinians were killed in Israel's three-week-long operation "Cast Lead."
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