Israel, Hamas agree to cease-fire after hundreds killed in Gaza
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday announced an Egyptian-brokered cease-fire to halt an 11-day military operation against Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip.
Israel’s cabinet agreed “to accept the Egyptian initiative for a bilateral cease-fire without any conditions, which will take effect later,” Netanyahu’s office said in a statement.
The development followed growing U.S. and international pressure on Israel to call off a military operation that pounded the Gaza Strip with airstrikes. Hamas fired rockets indiscriminately into civilian areas in Israel. At least 230 Palestinians, including 65 children were killed, and 12 Israelis, including two children.
There was no immediate reaction from the White House.
Israel described the truce as “mutual and unconditional.”
But hostilities between the two sides remained high. Even as the cease-fire was confirmed, Israel’s Defense Forces said sirens alerting Israeli residents of Hamas rocket fire were sounding in the south of the country. And they were still negotiating exactly when it would take effect. Multiple reports said the truce was to go into effect at 2 a.m. Friday morning local time (7 p.m. ET) – just over three hours after the cabinet’s decision.
Hamas leader Osama Hamdan appeared to confirm that timeframe.
The agreement for a truce came a day after President Joe Biden pressed Netanyahu to de-escalate the conflict and move toward a cease-fire. Biden’s appeal to Netanyahu reportedly strengthened Egypt’s efforts to negotiate a ceasefire.
Biden quietly ramped up pressure on Israel in recent days as he faced mounting international alarm over the rising death toll and growing demands from some Democrats in Congress for a cease-fire or a reduction in aid to Israel.
The violence wreaked far more devastation in Gaza than in Israel, with an estimated 58,000 Palestinians displaced from their homes and untold damage to the territory’s infrastructure, which was already dilapidated by a 14-year blockade.
Israeli attacks damaged at least 18 hospitals and clinics and destroyed one health facility, according to the World Health Organization. WHO officials also said the central COVID-19 testing lab in Gaza City was almost totally destroyed, and the violence caused “severe restrictions” on the delivery of medical supplies.
the triggers for the violence: an effort by Jewish settlers to evict Palestinian families from their homes in East Jerusalem, followed by confrontations between Israeli police and Palestinian protesters near at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, a site sacred to Jews and Muslims.
Hamas, which controls Gaza, fired thousands of rockets at civilian targets in Israel. The stream of rocket shower sent many Israelis scrambling to safety in bomb shelters, although the vast majority of the weapons were intercepted by Israel’s sophisticated Iron Dome missile defense system.
Israel responded with its own fusillade of missiles aimed at degrading Hamas’ military capability and killing its leaders. Gaza is home to approximately two million Palestinians.
Dennis Ross, a former Middle East envoy under President Bill Clinton, told The Jerusalem Post, that he didn’t expect a cease-fire to last for long and that any agreement would effectively be “short-term calm” while Hamas still controls Gaza. Ross urged the international community to link humanitarian aid to Hamas demilitarization.
More:
Biden tells Netanyahu he expects ‘a significant de-escalation today’ with path toward cease-fire
‘Every incendiary ingredient imaginable’: Here’s what sparked worst Mideast violence since 2014
Key players in the Israel-Palestinian conflict and why peace remains elusive in Gaza
Biden has yet to reverse many of Trump’s pro-Israel policies he labeled ‘destructive’
Contributing: Akram Elloh for USA TODAY; Associated Press
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