Egyptian officials on Sunday notified Palestinian factions that the upcoming round of indirect talks regarding a ceasefire agreement between Gaza militants and Israel has been postponed.
The talks, set up to iron out details of an August truce that ended five weeks of deadly fighting in Gaza, were scheduled for Monday.
Fawzi Barhoum, a spokesman of the Hamas movement, told Ma'an that Egypt informed Hamas officials that the talks had been postponed.
There were no details given regarding the reason for the postponement nor any information about when the negotiations would be held.
"It's Egypt that will set a new date for indirect talks brokered by Egypt, and Hamas will be invited to that round of talks," Barhoum said.
The announcement comes in the wake of a deadly attack in the northern Sinai Peninsula in which a militant drove a car rigged with explosives into a military checkpoint, killing 30 Egyptian officers in addition to himself.
Egypt responded by imposing a curfew on North Sinai, closing the Rafah crossing with the Gaza Strip, and bombing suspected militant targets in the peninsula.
The Israeli assault on Gaza this summer killed more than 2,140 Palestinians, most of them civilians, and 73 on the Israeli side, mostly soldiers.
It ended on Aug 26 with Israel pledging it would ease the crippling siege on Gaza, loosen restrictions on fishermen, and an agreement to hold future talks on other issues.
The siege on Gaza has been in place over the last seven years and has severely limited imports and exports, including building material.
Al Bawaba
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