Hamas accepts cease-fire after strikes

UN chief urges Israel, Palestinians to avoid 'devastating conflict'

GAZA/JERUSALEM - A truce between Israel and Hamas largely held on Saturday a day after one of the most fierce flare-ups along the volatile border in years.

Hamas said it had agreed to the truce with Israel, a day after clashes killed an Israeli soldier and four Palestinians, three of them Hamas fighters.

A senior Israeli official confirmed a truce was in place. The Israeli military declined to comment on the cease-fire but a military spokeswoman said civilians could resume normal activities.

There was relative calm on Saturday except for one incident, with the Israeli army saying a tank struck a Hamas observation point east of Gaza City in retaliation for an attempted border infiltration in northern Gaza.

There were no reports of injuries in that strike and there was no major Israeli bombing campaign overnight or mortar fire from the Palestinian enclave toward Israel.

"With Egyptian and UN efforts, we reached (an agreement) to return to the previous state of calm between the (Israeli) occupation and the Palestinian factions," Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said in a statement early on Saturday.

On Friday, Palestinian gunmen killed an Israeli soldier and the Israeli military launched dozens of strikes that killed three Hamas fighters. A fourth Palestinian was killed by Israeli gunfire during a protest near the border.

The soldier was the first member of Israel's army to be killed on the Gaza front since a seven-week 2014 war between Israel and Hamas, a military spokesman said.

During the flare-up which lasted several hours, the Israeli military said its jets and tanks hit 68 Hamas targets, and destroyed "buildings and infrastructures and revoked significant military and command and control capabilities".

The Israeli strikes shook buildings in Gaza and fire lit the night sky. Pillars of thick smoke rose from the sites that were bombed. The sounds of sirens from ambulances racing through the streets were heard by residents bracing for an escalation.

Tensions high

Egyptian, Qatari and United Nations officials held contacts with Hamas and Israel in an effort to restore calm and prevent an upsurge in violence, Hamas official Taher Nono told Reuters.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called on Saturday on Israelis and Palestinians to avoid "another devastating conflict" after resurgent violence claimed five lives on Friday.

"I call on Hamas and other Palestinian militants to cease the launching of rockets and incendiary kites and provocations along the fence. And Israel must exercise restraint to avoid further inflaming the situation," said the UN chief.

Over the past few weeks the Israel-Gaza border has seen some of the worst violence since the 2014 war. The ceasefire is the third between Israel and Hamas to be brokered by Egypt this year and the second truce to be agreed this week after a daylong fighting last Saturday.

Weekly clashes at the Israel-Gaza border have kept tensions high for months. At least 140 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces during protests at the frontier held every week since March, including one killed during Friday's demonstration and more than 200 others injured, many of them by tear gas.

During this time, fires caused by incendiary helium balloons and kites launched by Palestinians in Gaza over the border have ravaged tracts of Israeli farmland. Israel has vowed to stop the attacks, even at the risk of wider conflict.

The Israeli official said Hamas had promised the Egyptians they would "end the fire terrorism and the terrorism along the border fence".

But Hamas' Nono said the truce would not mean Israel would gain the upper hand. "We will not allow an (Israeli) imposition of new equations on the ground," he said.

Reuters - Afp - Xinhua

(China Daily 07/23/2018 page11)