Renewed Gaza truce holds after rocky start

GAZA, Aug 14 (Reuters): A renewed truce between Israel and Hamas appeared to be holding Thursday despite a shaky start, after both sides agreed to give Egyptian-brokered talks more time to try to end the Gaza war.
The Israeli military said Gaza militants breached the truce and fired eight rockets at Israel and that in response, aircraft targeted multiple "rocket launchers and terror sites" across the enclave.
Hamas official Izzat Reshiq denied the Palestinians had breached the truce, and denounced Israel's air strikes as "a violation of the calm".
No casualties were reported in any of the incidents, and hostilities ended by dawn.
A halt in more than a month of fighting, in which 1,945 Palestinians and 67 Israelis have been killed, had been set to expire at midnight on Wednesday. The violence is the deadliest since the two sides fought a three-week war in the winter of 2008-9.
At the last minute, the Palestinians announced in Cairo that the truce was extended by another five days for the sides to work out a long-term ceasefire, mediated by Egypt.
"Israel has accepted the ceasefire extension," said an Israeli official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Bridging the gaps between Israel and the Palestinians in order to secure a permanent ceasefire has proven difficult.
Hamas and its allies want an end to the Israeli and Egyptian blockade on Gaza. But Israel and Egypt harbor deep security concerns about Hamas, the dominant Islamist group in the small, Mediterranean coastal enclave, complicating any deal on easing border restrictions.
Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh told Al-Aqsa Hamas television on Wednesday that the group would insist on "lifting the Gaza blockade" and reducing movement restrictions on the territory's 1.8 million residents, as a prerequisite to a "permanent calm".
Members of the Palestinian delegation said they would return to Cairo on Saturday night to begin more talks on Sunday.
A Palestinian official with knowledge of negotiations in Cairo said Egypt had presented a new proposal for a permanent truce.
Egyptian and Palestinian sources said Israel had tentatively agreed to allow some supplies into Gaza and relax curbs on the cross-border movement of people and goods, subject to certain conditions.