Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit urged Israelis and Palestinians to exercise restraint to facilitate a new ceasefire between the Jewish state and Gaza's 'Hamas' rulers, Reuters reported. Fighting across the Gaza Strip border with Israel has escalated since a six-month ceasefire which had been brokered by Egypt expired last week amid violence. "Egypt will not stop efforts (to broker a truce) as long as the parties want this, but I cannot imagine that we can convince the two sides to go back to the calm as long as there is this escalation," Aboul Gheit told reporters at a press conference with his Israeli counterpart Tzipi Livni. He added: "What we are asking them both is to restrain themselves, and then we see how to come back to that period of quiet." Livni travelled to Cairo on Thursday for talks with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on the violence along the Israel-Gaza border and the prospects of renewing the truce. Livni described the latest escalation as "unbearable".
