Rockets fired after Gaza ceasefire starts
Rocket and mortar fire threatened a ceasefire aimed at ending five months of deadly Israeli-Palestinian clashes in the Gaza Strip.
The Israeli military said all troops were withdrawn from Gaza in the hours before the 6am local-time truce, announced last night, took force.
Dozens of tanks and armoured vehicles were parked just over the border in a military staging ground in southern Israel early today, and the streets of northern Gaza were empty.
However, Palestinian rocket and mortar fire from Gaza continued to strike Israel within the truce’s first hour.
“Let’s hope that’s just the problems of the beginning,” Israeli government spokeswoman Miri Eisin said. “But if Israel is attacked, we will respond.
“If there are Palestinian factions that are not part of the ceasefire, it’s hard to see how the ceasefire will hold.”
The truce was meant to halt both rocket fire and other militant attacks on Israel from Gaza, and a military offensive Israel launched in the coastal strip in June, less than a year after ending its 38-year occupation.
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