THE ceasefire between Israel and Hamas held yesterday, allowing a tentative start to negotiations in Cairo on the war-ravaged Gaza Strip.

But the talks have failed to produce any face-to-face dialogue so far because Israel will not sit down at the table with Hamas. The Egyptian sponsors of the talks were forced to conduct separate meetings and shuttle diplomacy between rooms.

Meanwhile United Nations head Ban Ki Moon told the general assembly that Israel’s actions in Gaza had been “outrageous, unacceptable and unjustifiable.” He said that they had “shamed the world.”

UN human-rights head Navi Pillay was even more forthright, noting that Israel appeared to believe it was exempt from United Nations resolutions, starting with Resolution 242, which called on Israel to pull out of the occupied territories after the Six-Day War 42 years ago.

Earlier, in an open letter to the security council, the International Federation for Human Rights, representing 178 organisations from nearly 120 countries, had condemned the firing of rockets into Israel but said the Israeli army’s operations in response “constituted war crimes” and may amount to crimes against humanity.

The federation called for a referral of “the situation in Gaza” to the prosecutor at the International Criminal Court.

Elsewhere, Gazans were taking advantage of the withdrawal of Israeli soldiers to the border to go back to their homes to see what remained. 

But in many cases, it wasn’t much. 

Whole areas of Rafah have been flattened and much of the town is a derelict ruin.

And in Gaza City, a stinking mountain of garbage has been growing each day at a collection point because lorries were unable to take it to a landfill near the border, where Israeli forces were deployed until Tuesday.

Raw sewage has been pouring into the Mediterranean after an airstrike damaged a pumping station that transferred the waste to a treatment plant.

And utility workers are struggling to repair electricity and phone lines. With Gaza’s only generating plant badly damaged by an Israeli attack, it may be a long while before normal service is restored.