REPORT: Israel withdraws troops, 72-hour Gaza truce begins

Minutes before the ceasefire started at 8 a.m. (0500 GMT), Hamas launched a salvo of rockets, calling them revenge for Israel's "massacres". Israel's anti-missile system shot down one rocket over Jerusalem, police said. Another hit a house in a town near Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank. There were no casualties.

Israeli armor and infantry withdrew from the Gaza Strip ahead of the truce, with a military spokesman saying their main goal of destroying cross-border infiltration tunnels had been completed.

Troops and tanks would be "redeployed in defensive positions outside the Gaza Strip and we will maintain those defensive positions", spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Peter Lerner said, reflecting Israeli readiness to resume fighting if attacked.

In the Gaza Strip, where some half-million people have been displaced by the fierce fighting, some residents, carrying mattresses and with children in tow, left UN shelters to trek back to neighborhoods where entire blocks have been destroyed.

Several previous truce attempts by Egypt and other regional powers, overseen by the United States and United Nations, failed to calm the worst Israeli-Palestinian fighting in two years.

An Israeli official said that in the hour before the ceasefire came into effect, the civilian airspace over Tel Aviv was closed as a precaution against Gaza rockets, and takeoffs and landings were delayed at Ben-Gurion airport.

Gaza officials say the war has killed 1,867 Palestinians, most of them civilians. Israel says 64 of its soldiers and three civilians have been killed since fighting began on July 8, after a surge in Palestinian rocket launches.

Israel was expected to send delegates to join talks in Cairo to cement a longer-term deal during the course of the truce.

Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said the Islamist group had also informed Egypt "of its acceptance of a 72-hour period of calm," beginning on Tuesday.

The US State Department welcomed the truce and urged the parties to "respect it completely". Spokeswoman Jen Psaki added that Washington would continue its efforts to help the sides achieve a "durable, sustainable solution for the long term".

Efforts to turn the ceasefire into a lasting truce could prove difficult, with the sides far apart on key demands, and each rejecting the other's legitimacy. Hamas rejects Israel's existence, and vows to destroy it, while Israel denounces Hamas as a terrorist group and eschews any ties.

Besides the truce, Palestinians demand an end to the Israeli-Egyptian blockade on impoverished Gaza and the release of prisoners including those Israel arrested in a June crackdown in the occupied West Bank after three Jewish seminary students were kidnapped and killed.

Israel has resisted those demands in the past.

Palestinian Foreign Minister Riad al-Malki said Israel must be prosecuted for war crimes before the International Criminal Court and that Palestinian authorities were preparing to join the court.

"We must do everything in our power to enable the ICC to bring to justice those responsible for war crimes," Malki said after meetings with ICC prosecutors.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also wants to disarm Hamas and demilitarize Gaza, after guerrillas launched more than 3,300 rockets and mortar bombs at Israel this past month. Hamas has ruled that out.

"For Israel the most important issue is the issue of demilitarization. We must prevent Hamas from rearming, we must demilitarize the Gaza Strip," Netanyahu spokesman Mark Regev told Reuters television.

Since the fighting began, several previous truces barely held. Regev said Israel had accepted Egypt's terms weeks before Hamas, and expressed a wish that the truce would last: "I hope this time we see the ceasefire work that's good for everybody."

Egypt has positioned itself as a mediator in successive Gaza conflicts but, like Israel, its current administration views Hamas as a security threat.

Besides the loss of life, the war has cost both sides economically. Gaza faces a massive $6-billion price tag to rebuild devastated infrastructure. Israel has lost hundreds of millions of dollars in tourism, other industry, and fears cuts in overall economic growth this year as well.


REUTERS

For more details, watch Maytham Kassir's report in the VIDEO above