by Turgut Alp Boyraz
JERUSALEM
The Israeli army withdraw its forces from the embattled Gaza Strip on Tuesday morning as a 72-hour ceasefire comes into effect.
"Israeli forces withdrew completely from Gaza at 8a.m.," Israeli military spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Peter Lerner told the Anadolu Agency.
The Israeli government and Palestinian factions had earlier endorsed an Egyptian proposal for a three-day ceasefire in the Gaza Strip starting Tuesday.
"From 8:00am today we will implement a 72-hour ceasefire," the Israeli army wrote Tuesday morning on its Twitter account.
"During this time, we will maintain defensive positions near the Gaza border," it added.
The ceasefire started amid hopes that it will hold to give the two sides enough time to reach a durable truce.
Israel's military equipment had pulled out of the Gaza Strip early almost half an hour before the 72-hour humanitarian ceasefire started, eyewitnesses said.
They added that military equipment had totally withdrawn from the southern Gaza Strip city of Rafah, having advanced between 1.5 and 2.5 kilometers inside the city earlier.
The eyewitnesses said the Israeli military equipment pulled out of Gaza through the military crossings Karam Abu Salem and Sofa on the eastern border of Rafah.
On Friday, a similar ceasefire crumbled two hours after it had come into effect when Israel resumed its aerial strikes against the blockaded Gaza Strip, claiming that Gaza-based groups had kidnapped an Israeli soldier.
Israel later declared the soldier killed in combat.
An Israeli delegation is expected to head to the Egyptian capital of Cairo within hours to start indirect talks with the Palestinians on an arrangement that puts an end to fighting between the two sides.
Israel had been pounding the blockaded Gaza Strip -- home to 1.8 million people -- since July 7.
At least 1,867 Palestinians, mostly civilians, have been killed and 9,450 wounded in unrelenting Israeli attacks since then.
The Israeli army has confirmed that 64 troops had been killed and 400 others injured in the ongoing Gaza military operation.
Gaza-based resistance factions, meanwhile, had continued to fire rockets at Israeli cities, killing three civilians.
The offensive -- codenamed "Operation Protective Edge" -- is the Jewish state's third major offensive against the densely-populated Gaza Strip within the last six years.
Israel pulls equipment out of Gaza
Israel's military equipment had pulled out of the Gaza Strip early on Tuesday, almost half an hour before an Egypt-brokered 72-hour humanitarian ceasefire started in the Palestinian enclave, eyewitnesses said.
They added that military equipment had totally withdrawn from the southern Gaza Strip city of Rafah, having advanced between 1.5 and 2.5 kilometers inside the city earlier.
The eyewitnesses said the Israeli military equipment pulled out of Gaza through the military crossings Karam Abu Salem and Sofa on the eastern border of Rafah.
The Israeli government and Palestinian factions had earlier approved an Egyptian proposal for starting a three-day ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, starting from Tuesday.
The ceasefire has started at 8:00am local time (0500 GMT) amid hopes that it will hold this time to give the Palestinians and the Israelis enough time to reach a durable settlement to the conflict.
*Anadolu Agency correspondent Mustafa Haboosh contributed to this report from the Gaza City
www.aa.com.tr/en
