Article author:
Reuters
Nidal Al-Mughrabi and Dan Williams
Gaza/Jerusalem — Israeli and Palestinian militants have agreed to a Cairo-brokered ceasefire that will take effect late Sunday, sources say said, raising hopes in the Gaza frontier, ending the most severe flare-up in more than a year.
Israeli forces shelled Palestinian targets throughout the weekend, triggering long-range rocket attacks on Palestinian cities.
A Palestinian official familiar with Islamic Jihad, the faction Israel has been fighting in Gaza since Friday, and the ceasefire effort, said the ceasefire would go into effect at 23:30 (20:30 GMT). Israel did not immediately confirm this.
Palestinian and Egyptian sources had previously indicated the timing of a truce.
Although the recent clashes reflect a prelude to the previous Gaza war, Hamas, the ruling Islamist group in the Gaza Strip and a more powerful force than the Iran-backed Islamic Jihad, has Having stayed so far, they are relatively contained. out.
A Gaza official said he had killed 41 Palestinians so far. Nearly half of them are civilians, including children. Rockets have threatened much of southern Israel, sending residents of cities such as Tel Aviv and Ashkelon to shelters.
Israel launched a so-called preemptive strike on Friday in what is believed to be an Islamic jihadist strike intended to retaliate for the arrest of group leader Bassam al-Saadi in the occupied West Bank. started.
In response, Islamic Jihad fired hundreds of rockets into Israel. The group said the ceasefire would include Al-Saadi's release. Israeli officials did not immediately comment.
On Sunday, Islamic Jihad opened fire on its range toward Jerusalem in what it described as retaliation for Israel's killing of a commander in southern Gaza overnight.
Israel said an Iron Dome interceptor, whose military had shown a 97% success rate for him, shot down a rocket just west of the city.
Palestinians are again in a surge of bloodshed after raking the ruins of their homes to retrieve furniture and documents after the outbreak of war in 2008-2009, 2012, 2014 and last year.
``Who wants war? said a Gaza taxi driver who identified himself as Abu Mohammad. "An eye for an eye."
(Additional reporting by Ali Sawafta Ramallah; Additional reporting by Maayan Lubell of Jerusalem and Ahmed Mohamed Hassan of Cairo; Written by Dan Williams; Editing by Mark Heinrich and John Stonestreet)
