The Hamas militant group has said a ceasefire has been reached to end the latest round of fighting with Israel.
Hamas’ Al-Aqsa TV channel reported late on Thursday that a ceasefire has taken hold “on the basis of mutual calm”. It said the deal was mediated by Egypt and other regional players.
A senior Hamas official said the deal would formally go into effect at midnight.
He said the agreement merely ends the latest two-day burst of violence between Israel and Hamas.
He said Egypt would continue efforts to broker a long-term ceasefire. Hamas wants an end to a decade-long Israeli-Egyptian border blockade as a condition for any long-term deal.
An Israeli airstrike on the Said al-Mis’hal cultural center in Gaza City (Arafat Kareem/AP)
An Israeli official, speaking on condition of anonymity, denied a deal had been reached. But early on Friday, the situation in Gaza appeared quiet.
The Hamas announcement came shortly after Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s security cabinet ordered the army to take unspecified “strong action” against Gaza militants as the military reinforced units along the border.
Israel and Hamas have fought three wars since the Islamic militant group seized control of Gaza in 2007. In this week’s fighting, the Palestinian health ministry said three Palestinians, including a pregnant woman and her one-year-old daughter, and a Hamas militant, were killed in separate airstrikes. Israeli officials said seven people were wounded by rocket or mortar fire on the Israeli side.
Air raid sirens warning of incoming rocket fire wailed in southern Israel overnight and throughout the day, sending families scrambling into bomb shelters, cancelling outdoor summer cultural events and forcing summer camps indoors. The Israeli air force, meanwhile, attacked targets across Gaza.
A Palestinian rocket struck the southern city of Beersheba late in the afternoon, landing in an open area. It was the first time a rocket had hit the city since the 2014 war.
Rubble after an airstrike in Mughraqa, central Gaza Strip (Adel Hana/AP)
Shortly after, an Israeli airstrike flattened the five-story cultural centre in the Shati refugee camp, a crowded district of Gaza City. The airstrike set off a powerful explosion and sent a huge plume of black smoke into the air, causing crowds to scream in panic. Medical officials said at least seven bystanders were wounded.
The building is home to a popular theatre and exhibits plays and other shows on a daily basis. An Egyptian-Palestinian cultural society also has an office in the building.
“The deliberate targeting of a cultural centre with airstrikes and destruction… is a barbaric act,” said Hazem Qassem, a Hamas spokesman. He said the destruction of the Egyptian cultural office was “an Israeli attempt to sabotage” the Egyptian ceasefire efforts.
The Israeli military said the building served as a Palestinian military installation. Hamas’ interior ministry, including its secret police, has offices in an adjacent site, but those offices were not hit.
Despite the animosity, the enemies have signalled, through their contacts with Egypt, that they want to avoid another war. Reaching a deal, however, will likely require major concession on both sides.
Hamas is demanding the lifting of an Israeli-Egyptian border blockade that has devastated Gaza’s economy, while Israel wants an end to rocket fire, as well as recent border protests and launches of incendiary balloons, and the return of the remains of two dead soldiers and two Israelis believed to be alive and held by Hamas.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here