Cease-fire holds in early going as Palestinians, Israelis take stock

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip – A cease-fire between Israel and Hamas was holding during its opening hours Friday as people in Gaza and towns in southern Israel woke up to a morning of relative normality after the 11-day bloodletting that left scores of people dead and upended the lives of thousands of others.

The truce, which came into effect at 2 a.m. Friday, brought a halt to the worst bout of violence between Israelis and Palestinians since 2014. Both Israel and Hamas militants in Gaza claimed victory.

But in a sign that the grievances at the heart of the conflict have not been resolved, violent face-offs were reported during Friday prayers at Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem between Israeli police and Palestinian worshipers, in a rerun of the unrest that helped spark the war’s start May 10.

During the armed conflict, fierce Israeli airstrikes and artillery bombardment killed more than 243 Palestinians in Gaza, including 66 children, according to the health ministry there. The barrage reduced swaths of the impoverished, densely populated enclave — including residential towers, commercial centers, schools, roads and other infrastructure — to rubble.

In Israel, 12 people, including two children, were killed as a result of thousands of rockets that Hamas launched and that paralyzed everyday life.

The moment the cease-fire began early Friday, residents of Gaza flooded the streets in celebration. Many fired machine guns into the air as muezzins broadcast “God is great” from mosque loudspeakers.

“Eid al-Fitr came to us when the battle was happening, so we didn’t feel it until the truce,” said farmer Akram Abu Khoussa, 46, referring to the celebration that marks the end of Ramadan, which had coincided with the outbreak in armed hostilities.

Hamas officials said the cease-fire was proof that the group had been able to “humiliate” its Israeli adversary.

“This enemy … doesn’t understand the language of peoples who yearn for freedom,” said Abu Ubaida, spokesman for the Qassem Brigades, Hamas’ military wing, in an audio statement released hours before the truce.

He added that Hamas had prepared a large rocket attack that would have struck many targets across Israel. Although the planned barrage was suspended, he said, it remained on the table, contingent on Israel’s adherence to the agreement.

For his part, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised the military, saying it had achieved the goal of crippling Hamas. He, too, warned  against any breaches to the truce.

“If Hamas thinks we will tolerate a drizzle of rockets, it is wrong,” Netanyahu said Friday, vowing to respond with “a new level of force” against any violence.

Israel’s military said that, in 11 days of aerial assaults, it destroyed more than 60 miles of the tunnel network Hamas uses for its fighters and materiel and killed some 225 Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad members, including 25 senior commanders.

The truce was agreed to Thursday after mediation efforts by Egypt, which has brokered similar agreements in the past, and amid growing international pressure for calm, including from President Biden, who pledged financial support to help rebuild Gaza.

“I believe the Palestinians and Israelis equally deserve to live safely and securely,” Biden said Thursday in a statement from the White House, “and to enjoy equal measures of freedom, prosperity and democracy.”

The European Union echoed Biden in a statement from its foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell.

“As the EU has consistently reiterated, the situation in the Gaza Strip has long been unsustainable,” the statement said, adding: “Only a political solution will bring sustainable peace and end once and for all the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.”

In Gaza and Israel itself, residents seemed less concerned with long-term prospects for peace than trying to resume daily life and dealing with the immediate aftermath of the fourth war to erupt between Israel and Hamas.

In one Tel Aviv neighborhood, people were out getting their hair cut in barbershops and salons, parents pushed baby strollers, and kids whizzed around on scooters.

“I feel a lot better. Not totally relaxed, but what’s most important is that there’s no fighting right now, no one is being killed or injured,” Dganit Eyal, a 59-year-old  occupational therapist, said after shopping at a health-food store and walking her dog.

In Gaza, Mohammad Naseer said the pounding by Israeli warplanes and tanks had wrecked both his home and his economic prospects.

“We haven’t gone back to the house — it was destroyed on the sixth day of the conflict when a shell hit it,” said Naseer, 37, who along with his wife, seven daughters and two sons was still at his sister’s place.

The battles had meant that Naseer, who doesn’t have steady employment, was unable to go out and find construction work. “I can’t stay at my sister’s, but I can’t afford to pay rent anywhere. I don’t know what to do,” he said.

With Eid al-Fitr approaching, Khaled Walid had invested all the money he owned in merchandise for his store in the upscale Gaza City neighborhood of Al Rimaal. But a missile smacked into a building nearby, destroying his place in the fallout.

“This is the second time it happened to me, and I can tell you this time it’s worse. I lost some $50,000 in this,” he said. He now faced the prospect of selling his car or getting a loan from his brothers in a bid to stay afloat.

“I’m going to try all I can. At least we came out safe from this war,” he said.

What Roni Keidar feels most is exhaustion. The 77-year-old spent the last 11 days in the safe room of her house in a farming village on the Israeli side of the Gaza border.

Her neighbors in Netiv Ha’asara have begun venturing out, although they have been instructed not to go too far from their homes when in the village, so they can get to shelter quickly if needed.

“We can go out of the village now and people can come in, but only through the back way, because the main road is very exposed,” she said, adding that authorities feared a stray militant attack or an incoming mortar shell.

Before fighting broke out, her house was being repainted and undergoing some renovations. Now “everything is in upheaval” she said, but after the weekend, she hopes the workers will be able to come finish the job.

Keidar, a longtime peace activist, said she had kept in touch with fellow activists in Gaza during the fighting.

“Where are we going now? Where will we go tomorrow?” she said of the conflict.

“It’s not my land and not their land. It’s land meant for both of us, and we need to realize that and find a way and live in dignity and respect for one another.”