“There hasn’t been a ceasefire as far as a stop to the violence against Palestinians from the moment that the ceasefire was announced to Tuesday when it was very clearly broken by the Israelis in escalating fashion,” said Yousef Munayyer, a senior fellow at the Arab Center Washington, D.C., who heads its Palestine/Israel Program.

Israel said the talks focused on bringing more stability to the region after a bruising war between Israel and the Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah.