Rival Palestinian factions clinched a new ceasefire deal yesterday to end a week of violence that has left more than 50 dead as Israel continued to pound targets across Gaza, killing one Palestinian. Gunmen began to abandon rooftop positions and to remove street barricades under the eye of Egyptian mediators and representatives of different factions, accompanied by the military adviser to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, General Abdel Razzaq Al Majaida. “The agreement has begun to be applied,” Majaida said after steps began to be taken around 1330 GMT. “The armed men are coming down from the tower blocks and the barriers are being removed.” It was the fifth such deal since violence erupted on Sunday but the first in which steps were actually taken to implement it. Witnesses saw a dozen gunmen leave one of the highest vantage points in central Gaza City and also saw barricades being removed from Jalla Street.
In announcing the truce, Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyah’s spokesman Ghazi Hamad said “armed men will leave (their positions in) buildings and streets, will remove road blocks and release hostages on both sides.”
The deal was struck at the Egyptian mission in Gaza in the presence of Haniyah, who had been in contact with exiled Hamas political supremo Khaled Meshaal as well as Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Abbas. “We hope that the Palestinians will respect the ceasefire concluded under Egyptian auspices,” Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit said. He called on Israel “not to attack the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip” because that “creates tensions between the Palestinians and speeds the resumption of clashes”. He also called on Palestinian militant groups to halt rocket fire against the Jewish state, reminding them of “Israel’s military supremacy”.