Ceasefire Holding In Isreal-Gaza

A ceasefire between Israel and militants in Gaza appears to be holding, despite the launch of several rockets hours after it took effect.

The Air strike left 34 Palestinians dead and 111 injured, 63 Israelis were in need of medical treatment.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said that 25 of the Palestinian fatalities were militants.

The escalation began on Tuesday when a senior commander of Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), Baha Abu al-Ata, and his wife were killed in an Israeli air strike.

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The Israeli prime minister said that Abu al-Ata was “responsible for most of the terror attacks in the last year from the Gaza Strip” and called him a “ticking bomb”.

PIJ spokesman Musab al-Buraim said that early on Thursday that it had agreed to a ceasefire brokered by Egypt after Israel was “forced to accept the conditions set by the Palestinian resistance”.

Those conditions were to stop “assassination operations” and the use of live fire against protesters near the Gaza border fence, and to start implementing steps to end the blockade of Gaza, he added.

Israel did not publicly confirm the ceasefire, but Foreign Minister Israel Katz said that “quiet will be answered with quiet”.

He also said he considered it a “matter of success” that the dominant militant group in Gaza, Hamas, had not been involved in the hostilities.

Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan denied any concessions had been made to PIJ, tweeting that the group “wanted a ceasefire and it received no commitments in exchange”.

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Palestinian Islamic Jihad said that it had forced Israeli to accept conditions for the ceasefire.

IDF Spokesman Brig Gen Hidai Zilberman said its operation in Gaza, dubbed “Black Belt”, had achieved all of its objectives.

UN Middle East peace envoy Nickolay Mladenov said that both the UN and Egypt had “worked hard to prevent the most dangerous escalation in and around Gaza from leading to war” and called on all sides to “show maximum restraint”.