Thousands of Palestinians took to the streets in Gaza to celebrate the entry into force of the ceasefire with Israel on May 21, 2021. – SAID KHATIB / AFP
Everything accelerated Thursday night. After intense diplomatic negotiations, the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas came into effect Friday morning in the Gaza Strip to end more than 10 days of clashes, their deadliest showdown in years.
In the hour before the truce went into effect, at 2 a.m., residents of the Gaza Strip were still reporting shelling and alarm sirens were still warning residents of southern Israel of gunfire. rockets. But as soon as the truce took effect, thousands of Palestinians celebrated the event in the streets of central Gaza City. “We won,” a fighter from the al-Qassam brigade, the armed wing of Hamas, told AFP on the spot. And demonstrations of joy have also multiplied in towns in the occupied West Bank, as the IDF made no mention of any new rocket scares.
This agreement was favored by Egypt, a regional power maintaining both relations with Israel and Hamas, a movement considered “terrorist” by the Jewish state, the European Union and the United States.
232 dead on the Palestinian side and 12 in Israel
The clashes have left at least 232 dead on the Palestinian side, including 65 children and numerous Hamas and Islamic Jihad fighters, and 12 dead in Israel – including a six-year-old, a 16-year-old girl and a soldier.
US President Joe Biden said Thursday, shortly before its entry into force, that the ceasefire in Gaza was in fact “a real opportunity” to advance towards peace between Israelis and Palestinians, while expressing his “sincere gratitude. To Egypt for its role in the negotiations. “I am convinced that Palestinians and Israelis equally deserve to live in security and enjoy the same level of freedom, prosperity and democracy,” Biden said from the White House. And UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for “rapid and lasting reconstruction and recovery that supports the Palestinian people and strengthens their institutions.”
The decision came after a meeting of the Israeli security cabinet – bringing together Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the military and intelligence staff – which “unanimously accepted” the Egyptian initiative to ” unconditional bilateral ceasefire ”. In the process, Hamas and Islamic Jihad – another Palestinian armed group in Gaza confirmed the entry into force from 2 hours Friday of this truce announced after more than ten days of bloody clashes with Israel.
Weaken Hamas?
Hamas launched hostilities on May 10 by firing rocket rounds at Israel in “solidarity” with the hundreds of Palestinians injured in clashes with Israeli police on the Mosques Esplanade in Jerusalem, the third holiest site in the country. Islam.
After these rocket attacks, Israel launched an operation aimed at “reducing” Hamas’ military capabilities by stepping up air strikes against this micro-territory of two million inhabitants under Israeli blockade for almost 15 years. For their part, Hamas and the Jihad launched more than 4,300 rockets towards Israel, fire of unparalleled intensity against the Jewish state, which has an anti-missile shield that made it possible to intercept 90% of these projectiles.
After three wars in a decade, Hamas and Israel agreed in 2018 on a truce aimed at stabilizing but also developing Gaza, a territory with stammering infrastructures and undermined by endemic unemployment, thanks to a mediation of the UN, the l Egypt and Qatar, a Gulf emirate close to the Muslim Brotherhood movement from which Hamas originated. Behind the scenes, these three players stepped up talks Thursday in order to reach this truce agreement.
The Red Cross had estimated that the populations in Gaza and in Israel had an “urgent need of respite”, adding to have informed Israel and Hamas that from Thursday its personnel would move to “provide a response”. “Both parties have a clear responsibility to facilitate such movements for us,” she said.