Palestinians, whose houses were destroyed during a seven-week Israeli offensive, watch United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon as he visits a UN-run school where they take refuge in Gaza City October 14, 2014 (Photo: Reuters)
Moussa Abu Marzouk, deputy head of the Hamas politburo, has announced that Palestinian and Israeli delegations will return to Cairo for post-truce talks by the end of October.
Speaking to the Palestinian Maan news agency, Abu Marzouk said the Egyptian-sponsored indirect negotiations would involve discussions about Gaza's airport and seaport.
"These matters do not need to be negotiated, for they were stipulated in the 1993 Oslo Accords; what we will examine is re-opening the seaport and operating the airport."
Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails would not be "present on the meeting's agenda," he added.
Abu Marzouk asserted that a swap deal would not be considered: "Hamas, at any level, has not tackled the swapping of prisoners, but definitely we will do one day."
Egypt brokered a ceasefire between the Palestinian factions and Israel in late August that ended a 50-day Israeli offensive on the Gaza Strip. The new round of Palestinian-Israeli talks will come soon after last Sunday's international conference on the reconstruction of Gaza in Cairo.
Speaking at the conference, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said reconstruction would cost $4 billion, according to a plan prepared by the Palestinian government. He said his government was in dire need of help to rebuild institutions that would be run by the new unity government.
While opening the conference, Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi said that ending the Israel-Palestine conflict was a duty for this generation. He also said that Cairo has worked to end inter-Palestinian divisions and return the Palestinian Authority (PA) to Gaza in order to "emphasise the unity of the Palestinian territories."
"We will continue to back the Palestinian cause, accentuate its importance and make it a priority for the Arab world," he stated.
The conference gathered roughly $5.4 billion in donations.
Nearly 2,200 Palestinians were killed during the offensive, in addition to more than 12,000 injured. On the Israeli side, 73 were killed, mostly soldiers.
The Gaza Strip has been subject to three wars within the past six years. They have claimed 3,760 lives, 2,145 of which were in the latest offensive. The number of people injured was 18,100. Around 100,000 housing units were destroyed or damaged to varying degrees.
Of those, about 20,000 homes were destroyed or severely damaged in the most recent offensive. More than 100,000 people are still displaced, with about 57,000 living in communal shelters.
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