Hardline Palestinian faction in Cairo for truce talks

CAIRO: Leaders from the radical Palestinian faction Islamic Jihad met with Egyptian officials in Cairo on Sunday amid efforts to get rival factions to cement a Gaza ceasefire, the official MENA agency said. The delegation headed by Ziad Nakhala, the movement s deputy secretary general, arrived in Cairo late on Saturday and is expected to stay two days, MENA reported. Last week, representatives of president Mahmud Abbas Fatah party and its main rival, the ruling Islamist Hamas movement, met separately with Egyptian officials, including intelligence chief Omar Suleiman. On Friday, a Hamas spokesman told AFP that Palestinian factions were due to hold direct talks in Cairo later this month. A broad dialogue involving all of the Palestinian factions will be held in Cairo in mid-June, the Islamist group s spokesman Ayman Taha said. Israel has over the last two weeks intensified its targeted killings of militants, mainly from Hamas and Islamic Jihad, in the Gaza Strip because of repeated rocket fire at the Jewish state.