The decision was the outcome of a vote where the majority of Israeli ministers finally accepted mediation efforts to stop the escalation which has led to the death of 231 Palestinians, and 12 Israelis. The Palestinian deaths include 65 children and 36 women. Moreover, 1,710 Palestinians were also wounded. Two young Israelis were also among those who were killed by Palestinian rockets fired by resistance groups in the Gaza Strip.
“The Israeli government’s decision to cease fire from one side was an expression of its rejection of any larger agreement that would link the ethnic cleansing of Sheikh Jarrah to the war on Gaza,“ Palestinian journalist and editor of The Palestine Chronicle Ramzy Baroud said.
“From the very start, Palestinians wanted to send a message of unity that their various forms of resistance – in Gaza, in East Jerusalem and throughout Palestine, including historic Palestine, today’s Israel- are all one and the same,” Baroud added, arguing that the nature of Israel’s ceasefire declaration, however, represents Israel’s insistence on delinking the Palestinian struggle and to present its war on Gaza as if an isolated conflict pertaining to its security.
The massive Israeli onslaught on Gaza, which has been under a hermetic Israeli siege for 15 years, has resulted in the destruction of much of the Strip’s already hailing civilian infrastructure. Aside from government buildings and thousands of homes, the Israeli strikes also destroyed several residential and professional towers, which hosted media organizations, such as the Associated Press and Al Jazeera. The strikes also killed doctors and journalists.
Abu Obeida, the spokesman for the Resistance in Gaza, said that Israel is now being tested, threatening that if Israel violates the ceasefire, the rockets of Resistance will reach every part of Israel.
Source: The Palestine Chronicle