A fragile ceasefire deal to end nearly three days of fighting between Israel and Palestinian militants in Gaza held throughout the night and into yesterday morning — a sign that the latest round of violence might have abated.
The flare-up was the worst fighting between Israel and Gaza militant groups since Israel and Gaza’s Hamas rulers fought an 11-day war last year, adding to the destruction and misery that have plagued blockaded Gaza for years.
Since Friday, Israeli aircraft had pummeled targets in Gaza, while the Iran-backed Palestinian Jihad militant group fired hundreds of rockets at Israel.
Photo: AP
Over three days of fighting, 43 Palestinians were killed, including 15 children and four women, and 311 were wounded, the Palestinian Ministry of Health said. Israel said some of the dead were killed by misfired rockets.
Israel yesterday said it was partially reopening crossings into Gaza for humanitarian needs and would fully open them if calm was maintained.
Life for hundreds of thousands of Israelis was disrupted during the violence. Security precautions imposed in the past few days on residents of southern Israel were being gradually lifted yesterday, the military said.
The violence had threatened to spiral into another all-out war, but ended up being contained because Gaza’s ruling Hamas group stayed on the sidelines, possibly because it fears Israeli reprisals and undoing economic understandings with Israel, including Israeli work permits for thousands of Gaza residents, that bolster its control over the coastal strip.
Israel and Hamas have fought four wars since the group overran the territory in 2007.
Israel launched its operation with a strike on Friday on a leader of the Islamic Jihad, saying there were “concrete threats” of an anti-tank missile attack against Israelis in response to the arrest last week of another senior Islamic Jihad member in the West Bank. That arrest came after months of Israeli raids in the West Bank to round up suspects following a spate of Palestinian attacks against Israel.
It killed another Islamic Jihad leader in a strike on Saturday.
Israel said that some of the deaths during this round were caused by errant rocket fire, including one incident in the Jebaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza in which six Palestinians were killed on Saturday.
On Sunday, a projectile hit a home in the same area of Jebaliya, killing two men. Palestinians held Israel responsible, while Israel said it was investigating whether the area was struck by an errant rocket.
In the occupied West Bank yesterday, Israeli troops demolished the homes of two Palestinians suspected of carrying out a deadly attack against Israelis in Elad in May. The soldiers faced a violent protest during the operation, the military said.
The outburst of violence in Gaza was a key test for Israel’s caretaker Prime Minister Yair Lapid, who lacks experience leading military operations. Still, he unleashed the offensive less than three months before a general election in which he is campaigning to keep the job.
The UN Security Council was yesterday to hold an emergency meeting on the violence.
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