Israel-Hamas Gaza Truce Holds For Second Day

The ceasefire between Israel and Hamas is holding for a second day, giving Gaza residents a chance to return to find out what remains of their homes.

The pause comes as Egyptian mediators shuttle between delegations from both sides in Cairo to try to work out a more permanent peace deal.

Some details have emerged about the negotiating points of Hamas, including an internationally funded reconstruction of the coastal strip.

A woman inspects her burnt home in Beit Hanoun

Under the Hamas terms, the reconstruction would be overseen by a Palestinian unity government, led by President Mahmoud Abbas.

UN chief Ban Ki-moon said that the United Nations was ready to help rebuild Gaza - but for the last time.

He told the UN General Assembly in New York: "Do we have to continue like this - build, destroy, and build and destroy?

Containers are filled from a broken water main in al Shejaiya, Gaza City

"We will build again but this must be the last time - to rebuild. This must stop now." 

The three-day ceasefire is the longest lull in a month-long war that has killed nearly 1,900 Palestinians. Israel has lost 67 people, three of whom were civilians.

In Gaza, cars and donkey carts loaded with household goods and mattresses filled the streets and queues formed at banks as people waited to withdraw cash.

A woman reacts at the ruins of her relatives' Khan Younis home

Volunteers in Rafah, which experienced some of the worst fighting and bombardment, began to dig graves to bury bodies which have filled up morgues. 

Across Gaza, small groups of civilians trickled back to their homes, making their way over buckled roads, through dangling power lines and overturned trees.

Along the way, rows of flattened buildings alternated with moderately damaged structures - and rare buildings with no damage at all.

Palestinians salvage items from the rubble in Gaza City

Crews from utility companies worked frantically to repair downed electricity and telephone lines, though Gaza's only power plant was damaged by an air strike.

In the Shijaiyah neighbourhood east of Gaza city, carpenter Mahmoud Al Maghani, 44,  said: "I think my workshop was here, but honestly I can't make sure of that. I came yesterday and all I found was rubble."

Mohammed Musleh, 27, said he had spent the last two weeks with his bride of four months and the rest of his family.

Men inspect the destruction in part of Gaza City's al Tufah neighbourhood

They were in the relative safety of the Jabaliyah refugee camp, south of Beit Hanoun.

He surveyed his now uninhabitable third floor apartment in the family's home, which was damaged by tank shelling.

Now, he hoped that a real solution could be found to end the isolation of Gazans.

"The war was necessary to force the blockade to be lifted," he said. "I hope that this time there will be a really permanent solution for it."

Turkey is in talks with Israel and Egypt about establishing an air corridor to provide humanitarian aid to Gaza and evacuate injured Palestinians for treatment.

The war broke out on July 8, when the Israeli military began bombarding targets in Gaza in an attempt to stop Hamas from launching rockets at Israel.

Ground troops were sent in on July 17 to destroy underground tunnels.

Tensions had been high in the wake of the June killings of three Israeli teenagers, whose bodies were found two weeks after they disappeared in the West Bank.

Israel accused Hamas of being behind the abductions, and arrested hundreds of Hamas operatives.

In early July, an Arab teenager was abducted and burned alive by Israeli extremists in an apparent revenge attack. Six Jewish Israelis were arrested in that killing.

Israel's justice ministry has now confirmed that Husam al Qawasmi, the suspected mastermind behind the killing of the three Israeli teens, was arrested in July.

It says his three-man cell is affiliated with Hamas, though the militant group has not claimed any connection to the teens' abduction and killings.

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