My Brother's Keeper: Month 2, Week 4, Day 1.

In the roughly 24 hours since my previous post the intensity of the conflict in Gaza has dropped off dramatically from its peak. In that time Hamas and other militants groups have fired around 20 rockets and mortars into Israel. Judging from the range these rockets have reached they have all been of the lower tech Qassam and Grad type rather then the more sophisticated M-75 and M-302 varieties.

In response the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) have carried out 25 air-strikes. The majority of these have been against rocket launch sites including one close to Gaza City port. However the IDF have also continued to target weapons storage facilities and militant fighters themselves. This included an air-strike against a Mercedes car in Rafah in which 4 Hamas fighters were confirmed killed.

Things have proved more interesting on the diplomatic front. Although it is difficult to get hard facts out of the talks in Cairo, Egypt because often there are no hard facts to give out and while negotiations of this type often require a more delicate touch then I can provide here there seems to have been real progress on a compromise deal. Although unconfirmed this compromise is said to involve Hamas deferring the issue of sea and air ports for Gaza to the Palestinian Authority while Israel allows fishermen up to 20 nautical miles out to sea and Egypt re-opens the Rafah crossing under the supervision of the Palestinian Authority.

This is a good deal for the Israelis because it removes concerns that Hamas will use any air or sea port to re-arm whilst removing any concern that Hamas fighters will attempt to enter Israel to carry out attacks. It is also a good deal for the Palestinians because it allow for a massive increase of goods flowing into Gaza from Egypt. The fact that it is Egypt and the Palestinian Authority that will be managing the Rafah crossing also removes the fear that Israel will simply use the lifting of the blockade as a way to further weaken Hamas by depriving them of tax revenues.

The main concern is of course still going to be the issue of arms control - specifically that Hamas will use the Rafah crossing to smuggle in more weapons from across Egypt and the Sinai Peninsula in particular. This is an area where all the international actors such as the United Nations, the European Union and the US who have spent weeks demanding that both sides agree a cease-fire could actually make themselves useful. The primary source of weapons flowing into Gaza has been Libya. There is already a United Nations program to control the flow of illicit weapons out of Libya dating back from November 2011. As such it shouldn't take too much to firstly get that program working and then expand it to specifically deal with the flow of weapons across Egypt and into Gaza.

Despite this compromise deal reportedly being on the table the Palestinian negotiators have apparently threatened to walk out of the negotiations unless the Israeli delegation rejoins talks by the end of today. I personally think that this is the wrong way to approach the problem because although the Palestinians seem to have the start of a very good idea I think still need to do much more work with the Egyptians on the details before the plan can be presented to Israel and then - after more work - the wider international community for consideration.

13:50 on 10/8/14 (UK date).