JERUSALEM — Soon after barrages of rockets were fired from Gaza into Israel on Sunday morning, the Israeli military announced that a humanitarian lull in its Gaza offensive, which was meant to last through midnight, was over.
Then, on Sunday afternoon, Hamas backtracked on its earlier rejection of the temporary cease-fire and said the “resistance groups” would agree to a 24-hour truce starting at 2 p.m. local time.
A Hamas official in Gaza released a statement saying that Hamas’s decision came “in response to the intervention of the United Nations” and out of understanding for the people of Gaza who are preparing for Eid al-Fitr, the holiday that ends Ramadan.
There was no immediate response to Hamas’s statement from Israel.
Huge clouds of smoke could be seen rising from the eastern neighborhoods of Gaza City that run close to the border with Israel, and fewer Palestinians were out on the city streets than on Saturday, as they appeared to be hunkering down again.
The military said in a statement shortly after 10 a.m. on Sunday that it was resuming its aerial, naval and ground activity in the Gaza Strip “following Hamas’s incessant rocket fire throughout the humanitarian window.” Some Israeli politicians began talking of the possibility of escalating the Israeli offensive against Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups, now in its 20th day, as intense international efforts over the weekend to press for an immediate, broader cease-fire appeared to have failed.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has come under political pressure from partners in his governing coalition and also from some ministers within his own party not to take the pressure off Hamas at this point.
Naftali Bennett, leader of the right-wing Jewish Home party, issued a statement on his Facebook page on Sunday saying “Israel stands at a historic decisive moment. It is possible to defeat Hamas decisively and to dismantle its rockets and tunnels.”
With Hamas badly beaten but not yet knocked out, and with the Israeli public united in support of the operation, he argued, this was no time for a cease-fire that would allow Hamas to regroup.
Lt. Col. Peter Lerner, a spokesman for the Israeli military, said that 25 rockets and mortar shells had been fired into Israel since 8 p.m. on Saturday, when an initial 12-hour cease-fire ended. Israel said it would hold its fire for an additional four hours while its cabinet met on Saturday night, then announced that, at the request of the United Nations, it would extend the lull for 24 hours. But Israel responded to some of the fire overnight with artillery fire toward Rafah, in southern Gaza, Colonel Lerner said.
The Israeli prime minister’s office said in a statement that the Israeli military was aiming to hit “terrorist” targets and that “if civilians are hurt unintentionally, Hamas will be responsible for that, after once more violating a proposal for a humanitarian lull that Israel agreed to.”
After listing previous violations of temporary cease-fires over the past few days, the statement accused Hamas of “making cynical use of Gaza’s civilians in order to use them as a human shield.”
The United Nations, it added, had requested an extension of the cease-fire to allow Gaza’s residents to prepare for the Eid al-Fitr holiday that ends the holy Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.
Hamas, the Islamic group that dominates Gaza and is leading the fighting against Israel, rejected the extension of the temporary truce on Saturday night, saying that any cease-fire that did not secure the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Gaza Strip and allow residents to go back to their homes was unacceptable. Israel had said that it would maintain defensive positions in Gaza during the lull and continue to operate against Hamas’s underground tunnel network, which has been used by militants to infiltrate Israeli territory.
An Israeli reserve soldier was killed overnight by mortar fire from Gaza as he waited in a staging area along Israel’s border with Gaza, according to the military, bringing the total of Israeli soldiers killed since the beginning of the campaign on July 8 to 43. More than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, most of them civilians, according to the health ministry in Gaza and monitoring groups.
Seven rockets were fired into Israel on Sunday morning. Two were intercepted by Israel’s Iron Dome antimissile defense system and five fell in open ground, causing no injury or damage, according to the police.
Shaul Mofaz, a centrist member of the Israeli Parliament and a former military chief of staff and defense minister, told Ynet, a leading Hebrew news site, on Sunday that Israel had enough troops inside Gaza and stationed along the border to take the ground operation to “the next stage” and recommended “exacting a direct price from Hamas’s leadership.”
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