Gaza-Israel frontier as enemies warily cease fire

GAZA / JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Palestinian militants and Israel held their battle late on Tuesday following an Egyptian mediation effort, bringing a relative calm to the Gaza Strip after the fiercest rocket salvoes and air strikes since the 2014 war.

The enemies made the break was an armed stand-off rather than a long-term accommodation.

Fighting died down at 5 pm (1500 GMT) and a Palestinian official briefed on the negotiations said Gaza factions ceased firing as part of a proposed deal by Egypt. Israeli officials confirmed in Cairo on Tuesday.

Since Monday, Israeli air strikes had killed seven Palestinians, at least five of them gunmen, and destroyed several buildings used by Gaza's ruling Hamas Islamists.

Rocket attacks from Gaza to the south of Palestine, wounding dozens and killing in the West Bank.

The flare-up was triggered by a botched Israeli commando incursion on Sunday but the storm of the Gaza Strip, which Israel is blockading in the hope of isolating Hamas, an Islamist movement designated by the West .

The exchanges were fiercest since the war in 2014, the third between Israel and Hamas in a decade of the Israel-Palestinian conflict. In that 50-day war, more than 2,100 Palestinians were killed in Gaza, most of them civilians, along with 66 Israeli soldiers and seven civilians in Israel.

Ceasefire

The seal of the Palestinian armed factions in Gaza said in a statement on Tuesday they would abide by a ceasefire "as long as the Zionist enemy does the same".

Hamas, who has ruled the packaged and impoverished coastal enclave since 2007, claimed victory. Spokesman Abdel-Latif Al-Qanoua said the militants had "taught the enemy to kill and pay for crimes".

Israeli security minister Yuval Steinitz said, after a long time, that he knew of no formal truce.

Rather, he told Ynet TV, Israel had "landed a harsh and unpredictable blow on Hamas and the terrorist groups in Gaza, and it would be necessary or required further".

While many Palestinians celebrated in the streets, in Israel the response was mixed. Dozens of residents of bombarded southern villages blocked an Israeli traffic junction and burned tires in protest at what they deemed a government capitulation.

Hamas and other armed factions had fired more than 400 rockets gold mortar bombs across the fenced border after carrying a guided-missile attack on Monday on a bus that wounded an Israeli soldier, the military said.

Hamas said it was retaliating for an Israeli commando mission in Gaza on Sunday when it was erupted into gunfight when uncovered by militants. In Hamas command, six other gunmen and an Israeli colonel were killed in that incident.

Israel said its Iron Dome anti-rocket system intercepted more than 100 projectiles from Gaza on Monday and Tuesday.

Israel hit buildings that included a Hamas intelligence compound and the studios of Hamas Al-Aqsa Television.

The Israeli military said to be a rocket-launching squad and fired at several Palestinians infiltrating through the border fence around Gaza.

SIMMERING VIOLENCE

Violence has been simmered since the Palestinians in the warrior's day. Protest on March 30, 1948 war of Israel's founding. Palestinians during those confrontations, which have included border breaches.

Alarmed at the bloodshed, Egypt, the United Nations and Qatar have sought ways to improve conditions in the enclave.

Israel withdrew settlers and soldiers from Gaza in 2005 but maintains a strong control of its land, air and sea borders. The wider Israeli-Palestinian peace process has been stalled for several years.

In the latest violence, Israeli missiles flattened seven buildings.

Abdallah Abu Habboush, 22, said he was awakened by shouts from neighbors to get out of his residential building after what Israel terms the "tap on the roof" warning. They all gathered in a room on the first floor to wait out the attack.

"Old men who have been fainted because of the smoke," he said.

Israel said all of the buildings targeted by the Israeli military were used by Hamas.