CAIRO — Israel and Hamas agreed to a cease-fire on Wednesday, the eighth day of lethal fighting over the Gaza Strip, the United States and Egypt said after intensive negotiations in Cairo.
The cease-fire, to take effect at 9 p.m. local time (2 p.m. E.S.T.), was formally announced by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Foreign Minister Mohamed Amr of Egypt at a news conference here. The agreement was aimed at quieting an escalating aerial battle between Palestinians and Israelis that had threatened to turn into an Israeli ground invasion of Gaza.
Whether the cease-fire could hold was uncertain at best, and even in the minutes leading up to the effective start time, both sides were firing at each other.
“This is a critical moment for the region,” Mrs. Clinton, who rushed to the Middle East late Tuesday in an intensified effort to halt the hostilities, told reporters in Cairo. She thanked Egypt’s president, Mohamed Morsi, who played a pivotal role in the negotiations, for “assuming the leadership that has long made this country a cornerstone of regional stability and peace.”
Mrs. Clinton also pledged to work “with our partners across the region to consolidate this progress, improve conditions for the people of Gaza, provide security for the people of Israel.”
Mr. Amr said Egypt’s role in reaching the agreement reflected its “historical commitment to the Palestinian cause” and Egypt’s efforts to “bring together the gap between the Palestinian factions.”
The negotiators reached an agreement after days of nearly nonstop Israeli aerial assaults on Gaza, the Mediterranean enclave run by Hamas, the militant Islamist group, and the firing of hundreds of rockets into Israel from an arsenal Hamas had been amassing in the aftermath of the three-week Israeli invasion four years ago.
The agreement came despite a bus bombing in Tel Aviv earlier in the day, which Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups had applauded. Also complicating the path to the cease-fire were Israeli strikes overnight on Gaza.
Egyptian and American officials did not immediately divulge details of the agreement, and it was unclear how it would be enforced. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, who had been threatening to launch another ground invasion if the Gaza rockets did not stop, said in a statement that he was satisfied, for the moment, with the outcome. But he left open the possibility of more military action.
The statement issued by his office said Mr. Netanyahu had spoken with President Obama and “responded positively to his recommendation to give a chance to the Egyptian proposal for a cease-fire and to allow an opportunity to stabilize the situation and to calm it down before there is a need to use much greater force.”
An agreement had been on the verge of completion on Tuesday, but was delayed over a number of issues, including Hamas’s demands for unfettered access to Gaza via the Rafah crossing into Egypt and other steps that would ease Israel’s economic and border control over other aspects of life for the more than one million Palestinian residents of Gaza, which Israel vacated in 2005 after 38 years of occupation.
The Hamas Health Ministry in Gaza said the Palestinian death toll after a week of fighting stood at 140 at noon. At least a third of those killed are believed to have been militants. On the Israeli side, five Israelis have been killed, including one soldier.
Around noon on Wednesday in the Gaza Strip, according to the Hamas government media office, a bomb hit the house of Issam Da’alis, an adviser to Ismail Haniya, the Hamas prime minister. The house had been evacuated. Earlier, a predawn airstrike near a mosque in the Jabaliya refugee camp killed a 30-year-old militant, a spokesman said, and F-16 bombs destroyed two houses in the central Gaza Strip.
There were 23 punishing strikes against the southern tunnels that are used to bring weapons as well as construction material, cars and other commercial goods into Gaza from the Sinai Peninsula.
Within Gaza City, Abu Khadra, the largest government office complex, was obliterated overnight. Businesses were also damaged, including two banks and a tourism office, and electricity cables fell on the ground and were covered in dust.
Israel and Hamas Agree to Cease-Fire
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Israel and Hamas Agree to Cease-Fire
