After 50 days of violence: Long-term Gaza ceasefire goes into effect

Israelis, Palestinians to discuss construction of a sea port and the release of Hamas prisoners next month

GAZA/JERUSALEM: Celebrations erupted in Gaza on Tuesday as a long-term ceasefire agreed by Israel and the Palestinians went into effect, ending 50 days of the deadliest violence in a decade.

The agreement, which came into effect at 1600 GMT, involves an immediate halt to the violence in Gaza, which began on July 8 and has claimed the lives of 2,143 Palestinians and 69 on the Israeli side.



Palestinian and Egyptian officials said the deal also calls for the immediate opening of Gaza’s blockaded crossings with Israel and Egypt and a widening of the territory’s fishing zone in the Mediterranean.

Under a second stage of the truce that would begin a month later, Israel and the Palestinians would discuss the construction of a Gaza sea port and Israel’s release of Hamas prisoners in the occupied West Bank, officials said.

A senior official of the Hamas movement, which runs Gaza, voiced willingness for the security forces of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and the unity government he formed in June to control the passage points. Abbas was expected to give further details in a speech at his West Bank headquarters in Ramallah.

Earlier, Israel bombed more of Gaza’s tallest structures on Tuesday, bringing down a 13-storey apartment and office tower and destroying most of a 16-floor residential building. The strikes flattened the Basha Tower and wrecked the Italian Complex, after occupants were warned to get out and no deaths were reported.

Six Palestinians were killed in other Israeli strikes on Tuesday, medical officials said. Israel’s military said 70 rockets were fired from Gaza and that one damaged a house in the southern coastal town of Ashkelon, lightly wounding 10 people.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 27^th, 2014.