GAZA CITY: A semblance of normal life returned to Gaza on Tuesday as a 72-hour truce entered its second day and negotiators sat down in Cairo to seek a permanent end to hostilities.
The enclave was quiet following days of Egyptian-brokered mediation to stem violence which has killed 1,940 Palestinians and 67 on the Israeli side since July 8.
Egyptian intelligence mediators in Cairo threw themselves back into shuttle diplomacy that unravelled after rocket attacks breached the previous 72-hour truce on Friday.
With no reports of violations on either side since midnight on Sunday, shops and businesses started to reopen and people ventured onto the streets of the war-torn coastal region, which is home to 1.8 million Palestinians.
Outside a UN-run school, a clutch of cars and donkey carts waited to take some refugees back to homes they had fled during the month of fighting.
"We want to go back to see what happened to our house," said Hikmat Atta, 58, who piled his family into a small cart to visit their home in the northern town of Beit Lahiya.
But, with the second truce in a week still in its early stages, he was not taking any chances.
"We're just going back for the day, at night we'll come back here," he told AFP.
Palestinian emergency services said that a one-month-old baby girl died on Monday of injuries sustained during the fighting, raising the overall death toll in Gaza to 1,940.
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