Egypt calls on all sides to adhere to agreement, set to enter into effect on Saturday, with Netanyahu thanking Egypt’s Sisi for the “resolute efforts” to broker a truce.
Israel agreed to the ceasefire while rejecting the Islamic Jihad’s demand that Israel end all targeted assassinations Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported, citing an official Israeli source.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office thanked Egypt’s Abdel Fattah al-Sisi for Egypt’s “resolute efforts” to broker a truce.
The Israeli announcement added that “quiet will be answered with quiet, and if Israel is attacked or provoked, it will do whatever is necessary to defend itself”.
For its part, Cairo called on all sides to adhere to the agreement, Egypt’s Al-Qahera News television channel reported.
“The two sides will abide by the ceasefire which will include an end to targeting civilians, house demolition, an end to targeting individuals immediately when the ceasefire goes into effect,” a text of the agreement seen by Reuters read.
Missile strikes from both sides were reported in the minutes before the 10 pm deadline, with Israel’s military announcing it had hit six operational command posts of Islamic Jihad group.
Following the deadline, however, a fragile quiet took hold, with the Joint Operations Room of Palestinian factions warning Israel against any further attacks.
“The resistance forces [in Gaza] are concluding the conflict united and resolute, and caution the enemy against returning to the policy of targeted killings. We are ready with a firm hand on the trigger, and if you return, we will return,” the group said in a statement after the truce set in.
There had been mounting calls for a ceasefire to be agreed, including from Israel’s closest ally, the United States.
US Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman, in a call to Israeli Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer, “stressed the urgency of reaching a ceasefire agreement in order to prevent any further loss of civilian life”, the State Department said.
Saturday marked the fifth day of Israel’s bombardment on the Gaza Strip, which has left at least 33 Palestinians dead, at least one-third of whom were confirmed to have been civilians.
Israel’s offensive, dubbed “Operation Shield and Arrow”, also killed six senior members of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the second-largest armed group in Gaza after Hamas.
Israel unilaterally withdrew troops and settlements from Gaza in 2005 but maintained an air, sea and land blockade since.
In addition to the more than two dozen deaths, the air strikes in Gaza have led to major damage to civilian infrastructure and left many homeless.
A hospital in central Gaza had been damaged as a result of a strike on a house next to it. And the Gaza Electricity Authority warned the area could face critical power outages within 72 hours due to a lack of diesel fuel for the sole power plant in the enclave.
Israel has completely closed the crossings connecting it to Gaza since Tuesday, halting the entry of essential goods into the coastal enclave.
Gaza already suffers from a “chronic electricity deficit” due to the blockade that has been imposed for more than 15 years, resulting in increasing fragile living conditions for the population, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
