The Hamas terror group said it accepted a ceasefire agreement with Israel on Monday night, ending a nearly month of incendiary balloon attacks and sporadic rocket attacks along the Gaza border.
In a statement Monday night, Hamas said the agreement was brokered by Qatari envoy Mohammad al-Emadi, who has been meeting regularly with Gazan and Israeli officials over the past week.
Israel did not explicitly confirm the existence of a deal, but in a tacit acknowledgment said it would fully reopen the fishing zone off the coast of the enclave and Gaza’s border crossings on Tuesday.
Israel’s military liaison to the Palestinians said in a statement: “This decision will be tested on the ground: If Hamas, which is responsible for all actions that are taken in the Gaza Strip, will fail to meet its obligations, Israel will act accordingly”.
In early August, terrorists in the Gaza again began launching dozens of balloon-borne incendiary and explosive devices into southern Israel each day, sparking dozens of fires daily that burned many acres of Israeli land and caused property damage.
In response to the attacks, the IDF conducted near-nightly reprisal raids on Hamas infrastructure in the Gaza since 12th August, while refraining from hitting Hamas operatives. On 16th August, Israel also halted the transfer of all goods, save for food and humanitarian aid, into the enclave and barred Palestinians from fishing off the Gaza coast.
