Gaza’s Popular Resistance Committees on Monday agreed to halt to rocket fire on Israel and abide by an Egyptian-brokered truce after four days of deadly clashes. At a press conference in Gaza City, the PRC said its militants would respect a “temporary” ceasefire which was announced late on Sunday by Gaza’s Hamas rulers. “We have temporarily stopped firing rockets at Israel according to the national consensus,” said a masked spokesman for the group, which was blamed by Israel for a series of bloody attacks near Eilat last week that killed eight Israelis and sparked the latest round of bloodshed.
But the PRC, whose leader was killed in a series of Israeli air strikes late last week, said talk of a more permanent truce was “out of the question. We have an open account with the enemy until it leaves Palestinian soil.”
The announcement came just hours after a senior Hamas official told AFP that the factions had hammered out a truce agreement in talks with Egyptian officials, which would be contingent on Israel stopping its air strikes on Gaza.
“We have reached an informal agreement to establish a ceasefire from tonight on condition that Israel halts its attacks,” he told AFP. Shortly afterwards, the Hamas-run security forces were “instructed to stop the shooting” against Israel, with police checking cars in the border area, and checkpoints set up at the entrance to every town in Gaza.
Israel police said that between midnight and 8:00am (2100-0500GMT), seven rockets hit Israel, although since then, there had been nothing.
