GAZA/CAIRO/JERUSALEM, (Reuters) – Israel and Islamist Hamas were expected to hold their fire for three days starting today, under terms of an Egyptian-brokered truce, while launching negotiations to cement a long-term deal to end a four-week Gaza war.
The ceasefire was the latest of several failed attempts to stop what has been the worst Israeli-Palestinian fighting in two years.
Gaza officials say the war has killed 1,834 Palestinians, most of them civilians. Israel says 64 of its soldiers and three civilians have been killed since fighting began on July 8 after a surge in cross-border rocket salvoes from Gaza.
Mark Regev, a spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said late on Monday that “from tomorrow morning at 8 a.m. (0500 GMT) Israel will honour the ceasefire as agreed to, and negotiated through the Egyptians.”
Israeli media said Netanyahu had won the approval of senior ministers for the plan in a series of telephone calls on Monday.
Regev, citing several failed attempts to achieve a ceasefire in the past month, added that “if Hamas violates the ceasefire, so Israel is prepared to respond.”
Israel was expected to send several delegates to join in negotiations in Cairo to cement a longer term deal during the course of the truce, an Israeli official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Palestinian groups, including envoys of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, were already in Cairo, where they met the head of Egyptian intelligence on Monday to present demands for ending the violence, which has displaced more than one quarter of Gaza’s 1.8 million people and seen 3,000 homes destroyed.
Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said the Islamist group had also informed Egypt “of its acceptance of a 72-hour period of calm,” beginning on Tuesday.
The U.S. State Department praised the truce and urged the parties to “respect it completely.” Spokeswoman Jen Psaki added that Washington would continue in its efforts to help the sides achieve a “durable sustainable solution for the long term.”
Efforts to cement the ceasefire into a lasting truce could prove difficult with the sides far apart on key demands, and each rejecting the other’s legitimacy. Hamas rejects Israel’s existence, and vows to destroy it, while Israel denounces Hamas as a terrorist group with whom it eschews any ties.
In addition to the truce, Palestinians have demanded a withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza, an end to the blockade of the impoverished enclave and release of prisoners including those arrested in a June crackdown when three teenagers were kidnapped and killed, demands Israel has resisted in the past.
An Israeli official who declined to be named suggested Israel would pull its forces out of Gaza if Tuesday’s truce held, saying: “We agree to begin implementing the Egyptian initiative. If the ceasefire is upheld there will be no need for any presence of (Israeli) forces in the Gaza Strip.”
