GAZA CITY: Palestinian militant groups in the Gaza Strip announced an Egyptian-brokered ceasefire with Israel on Tuesday after a severe escalation of violence threatened to descend into full-blown war.

The groups, including Hamas, issued a joint statement saying they would abide by the ceasefire as long as Israel did the same.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office and the military had not commented on the announcement. Israel’s hard-line defence minister, Avigdor Lieberman, issued a statement saying he did not support stopping the strikes.

“Egypt’s efforts have been able to achieve a ceasefire between the resistance and the Zionist enemy,” the statement by the Gaza groups said. “The resistance will respect this declaration as long as the Zionist enemy respects it.”

The violent escalation between Israel and Palestinian militants in Gaza was the worst since a 2014 war. Seven Palestinians were killed in Gaza over the course of some 24 hours as Israeli strikes targeted militants and flattened buildings while sending fireballs and plumes of smoke into the sky.

Sirens wailed in southern Israel and tens of thousands of residents had taken cover in shelters as around 460 rockets and mortar rounds were fired from the Gaza Strip, wounding 27 people, including three severely.

Egypt has negotiated ceasefires following previous flare-ups, while UN Middle East envoy Nickolay Mladenov has also been seeking a long-term truce between the two sides in recent weeks. Mladenov had earlier called the escalation “extremely dangerous” and said on Twitter that “restraint must be shown by all”.

After an Israeli security cabinet meeting that reportedly lasted some six hours on Tuesday, a statement was issued saying the ministers “instructed the [military] to continue its operations as necessary”.

The latest round of violence began on Sunday with a botched Israeli special forces operation inside the Gaza Strip that turned deadly and prompted Hamas to vow revenge.

The clash that resulted from the blown covert operation killed seven Palestinian militants, including a local Hamas military commander, as well as an Israeli army officer.

Palestinian militants responded with rocket and mortar fire, as well as an anti-tank missile that hit a bus that Hamas says was being used by Israeli soldiers. A soldier was severely wounded in the attack.

Israel hit back with major air strikes, with targets including Hamas’s Al-Aqsa TV station and internal security headquarters in Gaza City. The military said it struck some 160 targets in the Gaza Strip.

At least five of the dead in Gaza were claimed as members of various militant groups. Some 26 other people were wounded in the Palestinian territory, according to Gaza’s health ministry.

Published in Dawn, November 14th, 2018