GAZA CITY, PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES (AFP) – Palestinian militant extremist group announced a truce around Gaza yesterday, after militants traded fire with Israel following the death in Israeli custody of a hunger striker from its ranks.
One Palestinian was killed and five wounded in pre-dawn air strikes Israel carried out in retaliation for rocket fire from Gaza, the territory’s Health Ministry said.
But mediators from Qatar, Egypt and the United Nations (UN) succeeded in brokering a return to calm from 4am, sources in the group and fellow militant group Hamas told AFP.
Egypt – a peace broker between Israel and Palestinian militants in previous conflicts – corroborated the truce, though Israel did not immediately confirm any agreement.
“We managed to reach a calm with both sides responding to it from this morning,” an Egyptian security source told AFP on condition of anonymity. The Israeli army said the last warning sirens sounded near the Gaza border at around 5.30am.
Witnesses in the blockaded territory told AFP that several rockets were fired at Israel around this time.
“One round of confrontation has ended, but the march of resistance continues and will not stop,” said a spokesperson for the group Tariq Salmi, in a statement.
“Our brave fighters have proven their loyalty and commitment to defending their people,” he added. Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh demanded that Israel return the hunger striker’s body to his family.
“We stress – and as we have informed all the mediators who intervened – the necessity of handing over the body of the martyr Khader Adnan to his patient family,” Haniyeh said in a statement.
Adnan, 45, from Jenin in the occupied West Bank, died early on Tuesday after an 87-day hunger strike following his arrest by Israel over ties to the group.
