After five days of violence that resulted in 35 deaths, Israel and Palestinian Islamic Jihad have agreed to a cease-fire, according to Egyptian negotiators. Representatives from both sides agreed to suspend fighting, with Islamic Jihad confirming the cease-fire, but Israeli officials have not yet commented on the agreement. Despite the cease-fire being scheduled to go into effect at 10 p.m. local time, exchanges of fire continued for at least 30 minutes. The sides have mutually agreed to stop firing on civilians and destroying homes, but a Western diplomat with knowledge of the talks said the cease-fire came without conditions, as Israel had demanded, and was based on the principle of calm being answered with calm.
The recent fighting between Israel and Islamic Jihad, a small militant group backed by Iran, remained relatively contained, with the group failing to draw in Hamas or any other major faction. Some experts attribute the stamina of Islamic Jihad to the fact that, unlike Hamas, the group does not bear any responsibility for Gaza’s largely impoverished population of more than two million people. Instead, it is focused only on its long-term goal of replacing Israel with an Islamic state. Israel also maintained that Iran, Islamic Jihad’s patron, had been setting the agenda while the group’s leaders live in exile.
Previous rounds of fighting between Israel and Islamic Jihad were all over in about 50 hours or less. However, in a television interview in October, Ziyad al-Nakhalah, the leader of Palestinian Islamic Jihad in exile, said the group had made a “strategic mistake” two months earlier in agreeing to a cease-fire after 50 hours, under local and regional pressure.
2023-05-13 14:36:15
Original from www.nytimes.com