GAZA, Palestinian Territories —
Shell-shocked
Gazans on Monday sifted through the rubble of three days of
deadly aerial and artillery bombardments from Israeli occupation forces a truce
held.
اضافة اعلان
An
Egypt-brokered ceasefire reached late Sunday
ended the intense Israeli assault that killed 44 people, including 15 children,
and wounded 360 in the enclave according to Gaza’s health ministry.
Israel had since Friday launched a relentless
assault on Gaza, leading to Palestinian resistance fighters firing rockets in
retaliation.
As relative calm returned to Gaza Monday, and
electricity was restored, Palestinians tried to salvage their belongings from
the rubble of shattered homes and to start clearing the debris.
“We received the news of the ceasefire with joy and
happiness and we went back to our work,” said Gaza shopkeeper Hazem Douima.
“We did not want more bloodshed.”
Bereaved families buried their dead, including at
one funeral joined by hundreds of mourners in
Jabalia in the northern Gaza
Strip where a family laid to rest four minors killed in the conflict.
“Gaza is tending to its wounds,” said one resident,
Mohammed Alai.
Gaza’s sole power plant, after a two-day shutdown,
“started working to generate electricity”, said spokesman Mohammed Thabet,
hours after fuel trucks passed the reopened good border crossing.
Israel forces had sealed the roads around the strip
last week citing a “security threat” following the arrest of a senior Islamic
Jihad commander in the West Bank.
The outage had sparked fears about the impact on
hospitals overwhelmed with casualties amid the worst Israeli aggression on Gaza
since it launched an 11-day war on the strip in May 2021.
‘Right to respond’
Israeli forces said roads
would gradually reopen in the border area.
Israeli Prime Minister
Yair Lapid’s office late
Sunday agreed to the truce but said that “if the ceasefire is violated”, Israel
“maintains the right to respond strongly”.
Islamic Jihad also accepted the truce but said it
too “reserves the right to respond”.
US President Joe Biden welcomed the truce and
thanked Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi for Cairo’s role in brokering
it.
EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell warned it was
“crucial to work to consolidate the ceasefire”.
Tehran said it will always “defend the active
resistance”.
Islamic Jihad said 12 of its leaders and members had
been killed.
The group’s
Mohammad Al-Hindi said the ceasefire
deal “contains Egypt’s commitment to work towards the release of two
prisoners”.
They were named as Bassem Al-Saadi, a senior figure
in the group’s political wing who was recently arrested in the occupied West
Bank, and Khalil Awawdeh, a militant also in Israeli detention.
On Friday, Israeli
occupation forces killed Taysir Al-Jabari, a commander of the Al-Quds Brigades,
in a “targeted” air strike that killed 10 civilians, including a five-year-old
girl.
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