A ceasefire agreement between Hamas and Israel appears to be holding following one of the worst days in violence in the Gaza Strip since the 2014 Gaza war.
Political bureau member of Hamas Khalil al-Hayya said on Wednesday that armed groups in the Gaza Strip had agreed to a deal with Israel following a night of air attacks targeting several Hamas and Islamic Jihad positions in the coastal enclave.
Al-Hayya said the group was committed to a truce as long as Israel was.
“A number of mediators intervened in the past hours and an agreement was reached to return to a ceasefire in Gaza” Hayya said in a statement.
The Israeli army said it struck 60 targets belonging to Palestinian resistance groups in response to alleged “barrage of projectiles” fired from Gaza into southern Israel on Tuesday.
The firing of rockets and mortar rounds came as Islamic Jihad vowed to avenge a deadly attack against its members last week.
Since March 30 at least 121 unarmed Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces in protests near the Israeli apartheid fence separating Gaza and territories occupied in 1948. Palestinians are demanding their right to return to the homes and land their families were expelled from during the establishment of the Israeli entity in 1948.
Gaza – a territory of more than two million people – has been under a devastating Israeli-imposed blockade for the past 12 years which has severely restricted the movement of Palestinians in and out of the territory.
