Gaza City (Palestinian Territories) (AFP) - Gaza militants fired a barrage of rockets at Israel on Friday as Palestinian factions at talks in Cairo refused to extend a 72-hour ceasefire in the devastating month-long conflict.

But negotiations for a new truce were still ongoing in the Egyptian capital, as residents in southern Israel took shelter from the rockets and Gazans were fleeing their homes in fear of Israeli retribution.

The Israeli army said at least 10 rockets had targeted the south of the country, with one intercepted over the coastal city of Ashkelon. Police said they caused no harm or damage.

The projectiles were fired shortly after 0500 GMT, when the 72-hour ceasefire in four weeks of fighting in and around Gaza reached its end after Palestinian factions refused to extend it.

"All the Palestinian factions, including Hamas, have agreed not to renew the ceasefire because (Israel) is refusing to accommodate our demands, but negotiations continue in Cairo," Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhum told AFP.

A Palestinian official said Gaza's de facto rulers Hamas and the Islamic Jihad, a smaller faction also at the Egypt-led talks, had agreed a ceasefire but then there was an alteration in wording of an agreement regarding the Israeli blockade on Gaza.

The official said members of the Palestinian delegation to the talks, which is led by a representative of Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas, would meet after noon to assess their stance.

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Members of the Honduran Committee in Solidarity with the Palestinian People hold a vigil in front of …

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had no immediate comment on the latest developments, but a member of his cabinet warned of a "harsh" reaction to the rocket fire.

"Israel must immediately return its delegation from Egypt, we cannot hold talks under threat -- the firing at Israeli civilians as a pressure means," said Bennett, a member of the security cabinet.

"This is a test for Israeli deterrence, the reaction must be harsh."

But despite the warning, there was no immediate Israeli retaliation in Gaza, an AFP correspondent and witnesses said, reporting that thousands of residents of eastern Gaza City were fleeing their homes in fear of attacks.

- Israeli 'procrastination' -

Prior to the truce deadline, two senior Hamas officials told AFP their militant movement would not extend the ceasefire, accusing Israel of rejecting their demands. This was confirmed by a leader of the Islamic Jihad.

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A Palestinian girl salvages clothes from the rubble of her destroyed home following an Israeli air s …

A short while before that, two rockets from Gaza had hit southern Israel, the army said.

Israel had said earlier that it was ready to "indefinitely" extend the ceasefire.

A senior Palestinian official accused Israel of procrastinating, warning it could lead to a resumption of the fighting when the deadline runs out.

"The Israeli delegation is proposing extending the ceasefire while refusing a number of the Palestinian demands," he said, without elaborating.

Hamas's armed wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, has warned that fighting would resume if their demands were not met, first and foremost to open a sea port to the blockaded Palestinian enclave.

Four weeks of bloodshed between Israel and Hamas killed 1,890 Palestinians, and 67 people on the Israeli side, almost all soldiers.

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Israeli Merkava tanks drive near the border between Israel and the Gaza Strip on August 5, 2014 (AFP …

UN figures indicate that 73 percent of the Palestinian victims -- or 1,354 people -- were civilians. Of that number, at least 429 were children.

Hamas and Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) officials laid out a number of demands, starting with the lifting of Israel's eight-year blockade on Gaza.

They also want the release of around 125 key prisoners held in Israeli jails.

Despite the withdrawal of all its troops from Gaza by the time the three-day truce began on Tuesday, Israel has retained forces along the border who are ready to respond to any resumption of fighting.

Speaking in Jerusalem after a visit to Gaza, Red Cross chief Peter Maurer said he was "deeply distressed and shocked" at the impact of violence, saying the scale of the civilian losses must not happen again.

And he suggested there may have been humanitarian law violations.

But Netanyahu stressed to Maurer that "every one of these civilian deaths is a tragedy" while blaming Hamas of "both targeting civilians and hiding behind civilians".

- Open Gaza -

US President Barack Obama upped the pressure on the talks by saying Gaza could not remain forever cut off by Israel's blockade which has been in place since 2006.

"Long-term, there has to be a recognition that Gaza cannot sustain itself permanently closed off from the world," he said, adding the Palestinians needed to see "some prospects for an opening of Gaza so that they do not feel walled off".

The conflict has left parts of Gaza utterly devastated, with certain districts reduced to a sea of rubble.

In response, London, Paris and Berlin submitted an initiative to rebuild Gaza while ensuring Israel's security concerns are properly addressed, a diplomatic source said.

The proposal aims to strengthen the hand of Abbas and his Palestinian Authority while clamping down on Gaza militants.

It also envisages opening the Rafah border crossing with Egypt, then eventually opening other crossings to Israel. It also refers to the opening of a commercial port in Gaza.

“In mid-June, I began speaking privately to U.S. officials that the disease was spiraling out of control and more needed to be done immediately,” said Ken Isaacs, vice president of the North Carolina-based Christian missionary organization. “That the world would allow two relief agencies to shoulder this burden along with the overwhelmed Ministries of Health in these countries testifies to the lack of serious attention the epidemic was given.”

Once missionaries Dr. Kent Brantly and Nancy Writebol contracted Ebola in Liberia, Isaacs called Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.) on July 28. Isaacs relayed to Wolf, who has previously visited the relief organization in Africa, how bleak the situation had become.

Wolf said he immediately phoned the White House, State Department, Centers for Disease Control and Department of Homeland Security “trying to understand just what, if anything, the U.S. was doing both to help contain the outbreak in Africa and prevent the spread of Ebola to the U.S.”

“I was concerned that no one could tell me who was in charge within the administration on this issue,” Wolf said in a written statement. “No one could explain what actions would be taken to ensure the U.S. was prepared to respond.”

Wolf’s concerns about a lack of response were similar to those in a July 28 letter from Samaritan’s Purse president Franklin Graham to Dr. Tom Frieden, director of the CDC. The two-page letter cites “existing deficiencies in CDC planning, procedures, and protocols for response to the Ebola virus.”

Specifically, Graham said Samaritan’s Purse was having difficulty finding guidance it needed to get its volunteers back to the U.S. safely. From his letter:

From all we have been able to learn, CDC does not have any existing procedures or protocols for management or reintegration of returning healthcare workers who have potentially been exposed to Ebola.

We also were distressed to learn that CDC has no available registry of medical facilities capable of treating an Ebola patient in the United States.

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World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Margaret Chan addresses the media after a two-day m …

A CDC spokesperson couldn’t provide specifics, but said the health agency and Samaritan’s Purse had corresponded and that Graham's concerns have been addressed.

“I don’t know details, but I know that they’ve settled in a good place,” Dr. Barbara Reynolds told Yahoo News. “I believe they are getting what they need.”

Click image to read entire letter.

Three days later, the CDC warned Americans against traveling to Ebola-hit countries. On Wednesday, the agency escalated its emergency plan to a “Level 1” response. The ‘all-hands’ call has only been used twice since its inception in 2003 — for Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and H1N1 in 2009.

On Thursday afternoon,Reuters reported that the Obama administration is setting up a special Ebola working group to consider broad “principles of decision-making” for the potential use of experimental drugs to help those infected by the deadly disease in Africa.

Rep. Wolf recognized the progress, but said, “It’s clear the administration is still trying to catch up after being 'asleep at the switch' for so long.”

The highly contagious disease has killed nearly 1,000 people in Africa and sickened hundreds more since March.

“The death rates of this recent West African outbreak will easily and quickly surpass the combined total of all previous outbreaks,” Isaacs said at Thursday’s hearing. “The disease is uncontained and out of control in West Africa.”

At Thursday’s hearing on “Combating the Ebola Threat,” Isaacs said those confirmed diagnoses likely only represent 25 to 50 percent of the cases. He said the World Bank has committed $200 million to the fight, but “I fear money alone cannot solve this problem.”

To gain ground, Isaac said more people are needed to help "focus on the concept of containment.”

“The virus, regardless of where it came from, now resides on planet Earth and it has the capability to travel at the speed of an airplane,” Isaacs said. “Until there is a vaccine or a cure, we can only fight it by containing it, treating its victims, practicing proper hygiene, and educating.”

At the hearing, Frieden said CDC is working to open more treatment centers and expand proper Ebola testing in Africa. He made no promises that the virus won’t eventually surface in the United States.

“We are all connected and inevitably there will be travelers, American citizens and others who go from these three countries — or from Lagos if it doesn't get it under control — and are here with symptoms," Frieden said. “But we are confident that there will not be a large Ebola outbreak in the US.”

There is no treatment or vaccine for Ebola, but it can be contained if the sick are immediately quarantined and vigilant sanitation is used.

“If you leave behind even a single burning ember, it's like a forest fire,” Frieden said. “It flares back up.”

CDC activates high-level emergency operation center for Ebola outbreak (video)

(With reporting from the Associated Press and Reuters.)

Follow Jason Sickles on Twitter (@jasonsickles).

U.S. response to Ebola virus crisis questioned

Aid workers pleaded for help more than a month before the well-publicized infections of two Americans.
'Asleep at the switch'

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israel and militants from Gaza resumed cross-border attacks on Friday, after a three-day truce expired and talks brokered by Egypt on a new border deal for the blockaded coastal territory hit a deadlock.

It was not clear if the renewed fighting would derail the Cairo negotiations, which are aimed at reaching a sustainable truce, or whether the Egyptian mediators can find a way to prevent a further escalation and a return to full-out war.

Militants from Gaza fired first after the temporary truce expired at 8 a.m. (0500 GMT), launching 21 rockets toward Israel. Most landed in open fields, but two were intercepted over the coastal city of Ashkelon.

The Israeli military said it responded with strikes "across Gaza."

In Gaza, police said Israel launched 10 airstrikes, with most of them hitting empty lands and farms but that seven people were hurt. Police also reported fire from Israeli tanks on northern Gaza and from Israeli gunboats at the central area of the strip.

The resumption of violence cast doubt over the Cairo negotiations.

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Smoke rises over Gaza City after an Israeli strike, Friday, Aug. 8, 2014, as Israel and Gaza militan …

Both Israel and Hamas are under international pressure to reach a deal. As part of such an arrangement, Israel wants to see Hamas disarmed or prevented from re-arming, while Hamas demands Gaza's borders be opened. No progress was reported in all-night talks that ended before dawn Friday.

Sami Abu Zuhri, a Hamas spokesman in Gaza, said that while his group did not agree to an extension of the truce, it was willing to continue the talks.

Hamas, which has seen its popularity boosted for confronting Israel, entered the Cairo talks from a point of military weakness after losing hundreds of fighters, two-thirds of its rockets arsenal and all of its attack tunnels.

With no definitive statement that it would return to open war, the group appeared to be keeping its options open while several smaller Gaza militant organizations claimed responsibility for Friday's rocket fire.

The Israeli delegation left Cairo earlier on Friday morning, according to a Cairo airport official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

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Smoke rises over Gaza City after an Israeli strike, Friday, Aug. 8, 2014, as Israel and Gaza militan …

Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev would not say whether Israel is interested in extending the cease-fire or if it will respond to the rockets.

Regev blamed Gaza militants for breaking the cease-fire.

"The cease-fire is over," Regev said. "They did that."

Also, in response to the rocket fire, the Israeli army said it was prohibiting gatherings of more than 1,000 people in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and other areas within 80 km (50 miles) of the Gaza border.

The three-day truce came after a month of Israel-Hamas fighting, the third cross-border confrontation in just over five years.

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A Palestinian boy surveys the destruction of buildings at a residential neighborhood, in Beit Lahiya …

Israel launched an air campaign on the coastal territory on July 8, and nine days later, sent in ground troops to target rocket launchers and cross-border tunnels built by Hamas for attacks inside Israel.

Since then, Israeli strikes on Gaza killed nearly 1,900 Palestinians, wounded more than 9,000, devastated large areas along Gaza's border with Israel and displaced tens of thousands of people.

Sixty-seven people, all but three of them soldiers, were killed on the Israeli side, and Gaza militants fired thousands of rockets at Israel over the past month.

Israel said it was going after Hamas targets, including rocket launching sites and military tunnels, and carried out close to 5,000 strikes.

The U.N. said most of those killed in Gaza were civilians and that in dozens of cases, strikes hit family homes, killing multiple members of the same family at once. The Israeli military said initial estimates show at least 40 percent of those killed were fighters.

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A Palestinian flag flies on the rubble of a house, destroyed by an Israeli strike in the Gaza City n …

Previous rounds of Israel-Hamas fighting ended inconclusively, setting the stage for the next confrontation because underlying problems were not resolved, particularly the stifling border closure of Gaza.

Israel and Egypt imposed the blockade after the Hamas takeover of Gaza in 2007, and have since enforced it to varying degrees.

The closure led to widespread hardship in the Mediterranean seaside territory, home to 1.8 million people. Movement in and out of Gaza is limited, the economy has ground to a standstill and unemployment is over 50 percent.

Israel argues that it needs to keep Gaza's borders under a blockade as long as Hamas tries to smuggle weapons into Gaza or manufactures them there.

Hamas, in turn, has rejected Israel's demands that it disarm. The militant group has said it is willing to hand over some power in Gaza to enable its long-time rival, Western-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, to lead Gaza reconstruction efforts but that it would not give up its arsenal and control over thousands of armed men.

The Gaza war grew out of the killing of three Israeli teens in the West Bank in June. Israel blamed the killings on Hamas and launched a massive arrest campaign, rounding up hundreds of the group's members in the West Bank, as Hamas and other militants unleashed rocket fire from Gaza.

___

Daraghmeh reported from Cairo. Associated Press writer Ibrahim Barzak in Gaza City and Daniel Estrin in Jerusalem contributed to this report.

Fighting resumes after Gaza truce expires

Israel and Palestinian militants exchange cross-border attacks shortly after the three-day cease-fire ends.
Cairo talks hit deadlock

Geneva (AFP) - The World Health Organisation on Friday declared the killer Ebola epidemic ravaging parts of west Africa an international health emergency and appealed for global aid to help afflicted countries.

The decision after a two-day emergency session behind closed doors in Geneva means global travel restrictions may be put in place to halt its spread as the overall death toll nears 1,000.

The WHO move comes as US health authorities admitted on Thursday that Ebola's spread beyond west Africa was "inevitable", and after medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) warned that the deadly virus was now "out of control" with more than 60 outbreak hotspots.

WHO director-general Dr Margaret Chan appealed for greater help for the countries worst hit by the "most complex outbreak in the four decades of this disease", echoing an earlier claim by MSF that the "epidemic is unprecedented in terms of geographical distribution, people infected and deaths".

- States of emergency -

"I am declaring the outbreak a public health emergency of international concern," Chan said, stressing the "serious and unusual nature of the outbreak".

Even as a possible new case was reported in the east African country of Uganda, she said only a small part of the continent had been affected. "This alerts the world to the need for high vigilance," she said.

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A nurse wears protective clothing as he demonstrates the facilities in place at the Royal Free Hospi …

The suspected victim in Uganda was stopped on arrival at the country's main Entebbe airport after showing signs of fever on a flight from war-torn South Sudan. Ugandan health ministry spokesman Rukia Nakamatte said on Friday that they were awaiting results of tests for the disease.

In another worrying development, Benin -- to the west of the main affected countries -- said it had placed two patients with Ebola-like symptoms in isolation and was waiting for test results to establish if the pair were infected.

Ebola has claimed at least 932 lives and infected more than 1,700 people since breaking out in Guinea earlier this year, according to the WHO.

States of emergency were in effect in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone.

Soldiers in Liberia's Grand Cape Mount province -- one of the worst-affected areas -- set up road blocks to limit travel to the capital Monrovia, as bodies reportedly lay unburied in the city's streets.

President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf said people should expect certain rights to be suspended as the country imposes "extraordinary measures" necessary for "the very survival of our state".

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World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Dr. Margaret Chan on August 8, 2014 in Geneva give …

In Sierra Leone, which has the most confirmed infections, 800 troops were sent to guard hospitals treating Ebola patients, an army spokesman said.

Two towns in the east of Sierra Leone, Kailahun and Kenema, were put under quarantine and nightclubs and entertainment venues across the country were ordered shut.

- 'Africans should get new drug' -

Public sector doctors in Nigeria suspended a month-long strike with fears rising that the virus was taking hold in sub-Saharan Africa's most populous country. The deadly tropical disease has already killed two and infected five others in Lagos.

As African nations struggled with the scale of the epidemic, the scientists who discovered the virus in 1976 have called for an experimental drug being used on two infected Americans to also be made available for African victims.

One of the three, Peter Piot, director of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said "African countries should have the same opportunity" to use ZMapp, which is made by US company Mapp Pharmaceuticals.

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Members of Women in Peace Building Network (WIPNET) hold a prayer service on August 6, 2014 near the …

Ebola causes severe fever and, in the worst cases, unstoppable bleeding. It is transmitted through contact with bodily fluids, and people who live with or care for patients are most at risk.

Spain flew home a 75-year-old Roman Catholic priest, Miguel Pajares, the first European victim of the epidemic, on Thursday. Officials said his condition was stable.

The two infected Americans, who worked for Christian aid agencies in Liberia, have shown signs of improvement since being flown to a specialist hospital in Atlanta, Georgia. They are being given ZMapp, according to reports.

There is no proven treatment or cure for Ebola and the use of the experimental drug has sparked an ethical debate.

US President Barack Obama said it was too soon to send the experimental drugs to west Africa.

"I don't think all the information is in on whether this drug is helpful," he said Wednesday.

Nigeria's Health Minister Onyebuchi Chukwu has asked the US about getting the drug, but Spain has voiced caution about the serum.

US regulators meanwhile loosened restrictions on another experimental drug which may allow it to be tried on infected patients in west Africa.

Canada-based Tekmira said the US Food and Drug Administration changed the classification of its drug TKM-Ebola from full clinical hold to partial hold.

US health authorities also warned Ebola's spread to the United States was "inevitable" due to the nature of global airline travel, but that any outbreak was not likely to be large.

The worsening outbreak prompted the United States to order the families of embassy staff in Liberia to return home, with the State Department also warning US citizens not to travel to Liberia.

First discovered in 1976 and named after a river in what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ebola has killed around two-thirds of those infected, with two outbreaks registering fatality rates approaching 90 percent. The latest outbreak has a fatality rate of around 55 percent.

WHO declares Ebola a global emergency

West Africa's deadly outbreak now constitutes an international health risk, the World Health Organization says.
'Extraordinary event'

Gaza City (Palestinian Territories) (AFP) - Israeli warplanes struck targets across Gaza, killing a child on Friday in retaliation to rocket fire after a 72-hour truce expired without a breakthrough on a longer-term ceasefire.

Palestinian militants started the rocket salvos ahead of the truce expiry at 0500 GMT, and Gazans again fled homes in fear before Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned of a forceful response.

The bloodshed ended a three-day lull that had followed a month of fighting between Israel and Hamas that killed at least 1,890 Palestinians and 67 people on the Israeli side, almost all soldiers.

A 10-year-old boy was the first person whom Palestinian emergency services reported killed in Friday's Israeli air strikes in the Sheikh Radwan in northern Gaza City with six others, including a woman, wounded.

The interior ministry and witnesses said warplanes struck targets in Jabaliya in the north, Gaza City and in the centre of the Palestinian enclave.

Witnesses also reported artillery shelling east and north of Gaza City.

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Sammy Al-Sheikh (R), his wife Maha (L) and their three-year-old daughter Assil walk through the dest …

The Israeli army said it targeted "terror sites" and that Palestinian militants fired 33 rockets at the Jewish state, wounding a civilian and a soldier in the south.

Netanyahu ordered the military to retaliate "forcefully to the Hamas breach of the ceasefire," an official said on condition of anonymity.

But efforts to find a longer-term ceasefire in Cairo are ongoing.

The Palestinian delegation remains in Egypt, and although the Israeli delegates returned to Israel on Friday morning, the team has been shuttling back and forth repeatedly in recent days.

Hamas has not claimed responsibility for any of Friday's rocket attacks. Claims instead came from rival armed factions.

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Residents walk through the rubble of their destroyed home as a Palestinian flag flutters in the wind …

In Gaza, some families who had returned home during the truce trickled back to shelter at UN-run schools.

At one school in Al-Tuffah in Gaza City, hundreds of refugees were seen living in classrooms, laundry hanging off balconies and a scrum of people queing for UN food handouts

"Of course we're all scared, I'm scared, my children are scared, my wife is scared," Abdullah Abdullah, 33, told AFP at the school.

"I'm afraid because the schools were targeted, because young people died, women and children," he said, referring to UN schools that were hit before the truce.

Israel launched an air campaign on July 8, followed by a ground offensive designed to destroy Hamas's arsenal of rockets and its network of tunnels stretching underground to Israel.

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Palestinian families leave their homes in Gaza City's Shejaiya neighbourhood in fear of Israeli …

"We will continue to strike Hamas, its infrastructure, its operatives and restore security for the State of Israel," said army spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Peter Lerner.

- Rockets before truce expiry -

Israel said two Palestinian rockets were fired towards Israel in the hours before the truce expired.

In Cairo, Hamas said the Palestinians had refused to extend the ceasefire but confirmed negotiations were continuing Friday.

According to UN figures, at least 1,354 Palestinian civilians were killed in the fighting, including 447 were children.

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Israeli Merkava tanks drive near the border between Israel and the Gaza Strip on August 5, 2014 (AFP …

Hamas has been determined to extract some significant concessions from Israel after such heavy losses.

"All the Palestinian factions, including Hamas, have agreed not to renew the ceasefire because (Israel) is refusing to accommodate our demands, but negotiations continue in Cairo," Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhum told AFP.

The official said members of the Palestinian delegation, which is led by a representative of Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas, would meet after noon to assess their stance.

- Israeli 'procrastination' -

Israel said this week it was ready to "indefinitely" extend the ceasefire, but a senior Palestinian official accused Israel of procrastinating, warning it could lead to a resumption of fighting.

"The Israeli delegation is proposing extending the ceasefire while refusing a number of the Palestinian demands," he said, without elaborating.

Hamas's armed wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, had warned that fighting would resume if their demands were not met, first and foremost to open a sea port to the blockaded Palestinian enclave.

Hamas and Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) officials laid out a number of demands, starting with the lifting of Israel's eight-year blockade on Gaza.

They also want the release of around 125 key prisoners held in Israeli jails.

Despite the withdrawal of all its troops from Gaza by the time the truce began on Tuesday, Israel has retained forces along the border who are ready to respond to any resumption of fighting.

A British, French and German proposal to rebuild Gaza aims to strengthen the hand of Abbas and his Palestinian Authority while clamping down on Gaza militants to ensure Israel's security.