Israel agrees to cease-fire with Hamas militants in Gaza

Deirdre Shesgreen, USA TODAY
·3 min read

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office 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 for almost two weeks. Hamas fired rockets indiscriminately into civilian areas in Israel.

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.

Since the fighting began on May 10, at least 230 Palestinians have been killed, including 64 children and 38 women, and another 1,620 people have been wounded, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not break the numbers down into fighters and civilians.

In Israel, 12 people, including a 5-year-old boy, a 16-year-old girl and a soldier, have been killed.

There was no immediate reaction from the White House.

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.

The U.S. president quietly ramped up pressure on Israel in recent days as he faced mounting international alarm over the rising death toll and growing demands from Democrats in Congress for a cease-fire.

"I’m prepared at any time to go to Israel, to the Middle East, if that would serve the purpose of moving beyond violence and helping to work on improve the lives for Israelis and Palestinians alike," U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said at a news conference in Greenland on Thursday, where he is on official travel.

Blinken's comments were made before the truce was announced.

An Israeli artillery unit fires toward targets in Gaza Strip, at the Israeli Gaza border, on May 18, 2021.
An Israeli artillery unit fires toward targets in Gaza Strip, at the Israeli Gaza border, on May 18, 2021.

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 said. 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 fighting between Israel and Hamas began after the militant group fired rockets toward Jerusalem after days of clashes between Palestinian protesters and Israeli police.

Among 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: Associated Press

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Israel, Hamas cease-fire to take effect, ending fighting in Gaza

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