World News | Islamic Jihad leader says ceasefire with Israel

GAZA CITY, May 13 (AP) — A leader of the Islamic Jihad militant group in Gaza said it had reached a ceasefire with Israel to end five days of fierce fighting.

Mohamad al-Hindi told the Al Kahera Wal Nas channel that the Egypt-brokered deal would come into force at 10pm local time (1900GMT).

Read also | Japanese Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi has warned that China and Russia are stepping up military cooperation.

“Now, thanks to the continuous efforts of Egypt, this agreement has been reached. We appreciate this effort,” he said.

As he spoke, Israel reported continued rocket fire from the Gaza Strip. Israel did not comment on the ceasefire announcement. But Egyptian TV had earlier reported that a deal was imminent. A similar statement by Egypt last week collapsed amid ongoing fighting.

Read also | Democracy in Pakistan hangs in the balance and the judiciary can save it, says Imran Khan.

Fighting has killed 33 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, including at least 13 civilians. In Israel, two people were killed by rockets, including an 80-year-old Israeli woman and a Palestinian man from Gaza who had a work permit in Israel.

The Al-Qahera satellite channel said Egypt had brokered a ceasefire, which will come into force at 10pm (1900GMT). Egypt often acts as an intermediary between the warring parties. Egyptian officials, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss working behind the scenes, confirmed a deal had been reached.

Signs of progress emerged as the fighting continued. Another Egyptian effort to broker a truce failed last week.

Shrapnel from a Palestinian rocket hit a farming community in Israel’s southern Negev Desert early Saturday, killing a Palestinian laborer working inside Israel, Israeli defense officials said. A second Palestinian worker was seriously injured.

There were no immediate reports of casualties from Israeli air strikes in Gaza on Saturday, with 34 Palestinians killed so far, at least 13 of them civilians, according to Palestinian health officials. More than 147 people were injured. But residents said the homes of people not involved in the fighting were attacked.

Israeli military raids on the Balata refugee camp near the northern city of Nablus sparked a firefight that left two Palestinians dead and drew attention to the flammable situation in the occupied West Bank. In another incident near the northern city of Jenin, Israeli police said they shot and killed a suspected Palestinian attacker who charged at soldiers with a knife.

Meanwhile, the Israeli military bombed an apartment of Islamic Jihad commander Mohammad Abu Atta on Saturday, which included rocket launchers among other targets.

Islamic jihadist militants fired multiple rockets into southern Israel, instructing tens of thousands of Israelis to stay near safe rooms and bomb shelters. Hundreds of residents near the border were evacuated to hotels further north.

Islamic Jihad has promised further attacks. “As assassinations and bombings of apartments and safe houses continue, the Palestinian resistance will resume rocket fire…to emphasize the continuation of the confrontation,” the group said. The Israeli civil defense agency said mortar shells fired by Palestinian militants hit the Erez crossing between Gaza and Israel, and shared footage of a violent explosion on the main access road into Israel.

Israeli officials told the media that Egypt-led efforts to broker a ceasefire are still ongoing, but Israel has ruled out the conditions put forward by Islamic Jihad in the talks. Israel has said only that quiet will be met with quiet, and Islamic Jihad has reportedly been urging Israel to agree to a halt to targeted assassinations, among other demands.

Israel’s military commander-in-chief, Lieutenant General Herzi Halwai, said Israel had made “significant achievements” throughout the battle and that the continued firepower of Islamic Jihad “enables us to continue to achieve even greater achievements.”

“We are prepared to continue our targeted strikes and strikes with increasing precision,” he added.

Hostilities erupted on Tuesday when Israel targeted and killed three senior Islamic Jihad commanders it said were responsible for firing rockets into the country last week. At least 10 civilians were killed in the initial attack, including women, children and unrelated neighbors, which drew condemnation from the region.

Over the past few days, Israel has carried out more airstrikes, killing other senior Islamic Jihad commanders and destroying their command centers and rocket launch sites.

Palestinians ventured out Saturday to assess the damage caused by Israeli warplanes and salvage what they can. A man carefully removes documents from under the rubble. Another person removed a mattress.

Four houses in a densely populated neighborhood were reduced to ashes in the pre-dawn attack. The Israeli military said the targeted houses belonged to or were used by Islamic jihadist militants. Residents denied the army’s claims and said they did not know why their homes were targeted.

“We don’t have a rocket launch pad at all. It’s a residential area,” Awni Obaid said next to the ruins of his three-storey house in the central town of Deir Barah.

The nearby house of his relative, Jehad Obaid, was also razed. He was standing a few hundred meters away when his apartment was bombed.

“I wanted to throw up because of the dust,” he said.

“This is extraordinary hatred. They claim they don’t attack children, but what we see is madness and destruction.”

Islamic Jihad retaliated by firing more than 1,200 rockets into southern and central Israel, according to the military. On Friday, the group escalated its attacks and fired rockets at Jerusalem, sounding air raid sirens in Israeli settlements south of the disputed capital.

Most of the rockets landed inside Gaza, either in open areas or were intercepted by Israel’s Iron Dome air defense system. But on Thursday, a rocket pierced a missile defense system and sliced ​​through a house in the central city of Rehovot, killing an 80-year-old woman and wounding several others.

The larger militant group Hamas, which has fought four wars with Israel since taking control of Gaza in 2007, has praised the Islamic Jihad attacks but remains on the sidelines, limiting the scope of the conflict, according to Israeli military officials.

With the de facto government responsible for the dire conditions in the blockaded Gaza Strip, Hamas has recently tried to cover up its conflict with Israel. Islamic Jihad, on the other hand, is a more ideological and unruly militant group obsessed with violence, leading the past few rounds of fighting Israel.

A deadly Israeli attack on the Balata refugee camp on Saturday shifted the focus of the conflict back to the long-simmering West Bank. Israeli forces surrounded a militant hideout, residents said, sharing footage of a massive explosion that billowed smoke from the crowded camp. Ejected shell casings littered the alley. Blood stained the streets. The Palestinian Ministry of Health identified the two as Said Mesha, 32, and Adnan Araj, 19. At least three other Palestinians were wounded in the raid, the latest in Israel’s nearly daily arrests of suspected militants in the territory.

The Israeli military said the target apartment housed militants planning to attack Israeli soldiers and create improvised explosive devices.

It said the explosion and fire broke out after Israeli security forces detonated explosives at the hideout. The military said the two Palestinians were killed when Israeli troops opened fire on a group of gunmen who opened fire on them.

Israeli-Palestinian conflict has surged in the West Bank under the most right-wing government in Israel’s history. According to an Associated Press tally, 111 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank and East Jerusalem since the start of the year, at least half of them linked to militant groups — the highest death toll in nearly two decades. During that time, 20 people have been killed in Palestinian attacks on Israelis. (Associated Press)

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from a Syndicated News feed, the content body may not have been modified or edited by LatestLY staff)