A ceasefire agreement came into force on Thursday morning, 14 November in the Gaza Strip, after two days of clashes between the Israeli army and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad group.
In an attempt to curb this new spiral of violence that has left more than 30 dead in the Palestinian enclave, UN envoy for the Middle East, Nickolay Mladenov, arrived in Cairo Wednesday to lead with Egypt mediation for "urgent de-escalation".
The ceasefire agreement came into effect at 05:30 local time (0330 GMT) in the Gaza Strip, an Egyptian source told AFP after the mediation and a senior official of Islamic Jihad.
A source in Islamic Jihad has confirmed the agreement to AFP. An Israeli military official told AFP on Wednesday night that the Israeli army would end its operation in Gaza if the Islamic Jihad stopped its rockets firing towards Israel.
This "ceasefire agreement comes as a result of Egypt's efforts" and has been endorsed by "Palestinian factions including Islamic Jihad," said the senior Egyptian official. According to the official, the agreement also stipulates that Palestinian groups must also ensure "to keep the peace" during protests against the Israeli blockade on Gaza and the return of Palestinian refugees to their lands.
For its part, the Jewish state must also stop its strikes and "ensure a cease-fire" during these demonstrations of the "march of the return" which made more than 300 dead and thousands of wounded in the Gaza Strip, according to this source.
More than 360 rockets launched on Israel
Earlier Wednesday night, eight members of a Palestinian family were killed in an Israeli strike targeting elements of Islamic Jihad in the Gaza Strip, according to the local health ministry.
These deaths bring to 32 the number of deaths in Gaza in Israeli strikes targeting since Tuesday the Islamist group, allied with Hamas.
The sequence began on November 12 at dawn with a targeted operation against Baha Abu al-Ata, a senior Islamic Jihad commander held responsible by Israel for a series of recent attacks against the Jewish state.
In the aftermath of this strike against Abu Ata, the Islamic Jihad launched more than 360 rockets on Israel according to the army, which for its part multiplied the air strikes against the positions of this armed Islamist group in Gaza, an enclave where live today about two million Palestinians.
In the Israeli areas near Gaza, sirens alert sound since Tuesday. Within a radius of 40 km from Gaza, utilities were closed again Wednesday.
One rocket damaged one house, another a factory, and another fell on a highway, passing a few yards away from striking cars.
"Stop your attacks, or you will take more blows," warned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday. "We are determined to fight and defend our country, and if they think that these salvos of rockets will weaken us or make us lose our determination, they are wrong," he added to the Islamic Jihad site. .
This sequence is the deadliest since clashes between Israeli soldiers and Palestinians who made about sixty dead on May 14, 2018 in Gaza, the day of the inauguration in Jerusalem of the American embassy.
Unlike Islamic Jihad, several months ago, Hamas approved a truce with Israel negotiated through the UN, Egypt, a border country of Gaza, and Qatar, the Gulf emirate, providing for the monthly inflow of millions of dollars in aid for the Palestinian enclave, where the unemployment rate is around 50%.
With AFP