After 10 days of attacks, Israel agrees on cease-fire with Hamas

ANKARA

Israel agreed on a cease-fire with Palestinian resistance groups in Gaza, Israeli media and Hamas officials confirmed late Thursday.

According to Hamas and Israeli sources, the Egyptian-brokered cease-fire will go into effect at 2 a.m. Friday (2300GMT Thursday).

"Israel failed to achieve any goals of its aggression and fled from battle with the Palestinian resistance," Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri told Anadolu Agency in a first official reaction to the cease-fire.

For more than 10 days, Israel has been launching attacks on the blockaded Gaza Strip.

Meanwhile, Hamas’ military wing, minutes after the cease-fire announcement, warned Israel of committing any attack on Gaza before the cease-fire comes into force.

In a voice message to Abu Ubaida, a spokesman for Hamas' military wing, Ezzeddin al-Qassam Brigades, said that the group "has responded to the Arab mediations to cease-fire with Israel."

Abu Ubaida warned Israel that al-Qassam Brigades prepared "a big rocket strike that covers all of Palestine [Israel] from the far north to the far south, from Haifa north to the Ramon airport south," adding that "the strike was, however, suspended to observe the behaviour of the enemy [Israeli] until 2 s.m. of Friday.

At least 232 Palestinians have been killed, including 65 children and 39 women, and more than 1,700 others injured in Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip since May 10, according to the Gaza-based Health Ministry. Health centers, media offices and residential neighborhoods have been targeted.

Recent tensions that started in East Jerusalem during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan spread to Gaza as a result of Israeli assaults on worshippers in the flashpoint Al-Aqsa Mosque compound and the neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah.

Israel occupied East Jerusalem, where Al-Aqsa is located, during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. In 1980 it annexed the entire city, a move never recognized by the international community.