Gaza, Israel Reach Cease-Fire After Days of Deadly Clashes Calm descends after a weekend of rocket fire from Gaza and explosions on both sides of the border By Felicia Schwartz
https://www.wsj.com/articles/gaza-israel-reach-cease-fire-after-days-of-deadly-clashes-11557133042
TEL AVIV—Militant groups in Gaza said Monday they had reached a cease-fire with Israel after two days of the deadliest fighting since the 2014 war.
Israel lifted security restrictions in the south near Gaza in a sign that it expected calm, though it didn’t officially confirm the truce. Four Israelis and 27 Palestinians were killed since Friday evening after militants launched nearly 700 rockets, and Israel said it hit more than 350 military targets in Gaza in response.
The latest conflagration sparked fears of a wider war after a year of violent flare-ups and periodic cease-fires. But calm descended across Gaza and Israel on Monday after a weekend of rocket fire from the strip, blaring sirens over southern Israeli communities and explosions on both sides of the border.
Hamas, which controls Gaza, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, another militant group, said the truce began at 4:30 a.m. Monday and included commitments from Israel to lift some restrictions on the strip, such as expanding Gaza’s fishing area, allowing more cash into Gaza for infrastructure and employment and developing Gaza’s power plant.
Mr. Netanyahu didn’t directly confirm the cease-fire but said Israel dealt Hamas and Islamic Jihad significant blows. He said Israel is prepared to continue fighting.
“The battle is not over. It demands patience and judgment. We are preparing for what’s ahead,” he said in a statement. “The goal was and remains the securing of silence and security for the residents of the south.”
The prime minister’s office declined to comment on the cease-fire.
Humanitarian and economic conditions in Gaza have deteriorated as the United Nations and Egypt have tried to broker a longer-term truce.
Israel began letting Qatari money into the strip late last year to provide funds for fuel, salaries and new jobs, and residents reported significantly more hours of electricity than in recent years.
Throughout the past year, Israeli and Gazan leaders have sought to raise pressure on each other while avoiding all-out war. The timing of the latest flare-up, just days ahead of two Israeli national holidays and next week’s Eurovision competition in Tel Aviv, also put pressure on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to end hostilities while balancing demands from Israeli politicians to strike Gaza harder than in the past.
Israel reintroduced targeted assassinations on Sunday, a tactic it hadn’t used since the 2014 war, and said it killed a man in Gaza who had sent Iranian money to Islamic Jihad and Hamas. It also targeted homes of Hamas and Islamic Jihad officials, training camps, weapons depots and other targets.
Still, Mr. Netanyahu faced criticism from political opponents as well as future coalition partners and members of his own Likud party. Some Israeli officials are frustrated with a repeated pattern of cease-fires that don’t hold for long and criticized the arrangement as another in a long line of meaningless truces.
“The cease-fire, in the circumstances in which it was achieved, lacks accomplishments for Israel. The range of time between the rounds of violent attacks on Israel and its citizens are getting shorter and the terrorist organizations in Gaza are growing stronger. The battle was not avoided, rather it was postponed,” Gideon Saar, a senior Likud lawmaker, said on Twitter.
Bezalel Smotrich, a member of the United Right party who is seeking to be justice or education minister in Mr. Netanyahu’s next government, said the premier should have killed many more in Gaza and inflicted more damage on Hamas.
Mr. Netanyahu, who won a chance at a fifth term as prime minister in elections last month, has until the end of the month to form his next governing coalition.
Israeli officials blamed Islamic Jihad for starting the most recent round of violence, saying the group targeted two Israeli soldiers with sniper fire on Friday at weekly border protests without Hamas’s knowledge. The groups then coordinated on firing hundreds of rockets into Israel, prompting Israel to respond with waves of airstrikes.
—Dov Lieber contributed to this article.
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