Israeli and Hamas officials confirmed Thursday that a ceasefire had been agreed for Gaza after 10 days of fighting, with the militant group Hamas sending hundreds of rockets into Israel and Israel bombarding the enclave with air strikes. Almost 250 people were killed in the fiercest hostilities between the two sides in years.

Israel and Hamas will cease fire across the Gaza Strip border as of 2am local time on Friday (11pm GMT on Thursday), an official with the Palestinian Islamist faction said, bringing a potential halt to the fiercest fighting in decades.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office confirmed the “mutual and unconditional” ceasefire after a late-night meeting of the Security Cabinet, saying it had unanimously accepted an Egyptian proposal but that the two sides were still determining exactly when it was to take effect.

A Hamas official told Reuters the ceasefire would be “mutual and simultaneous”.

Within minutes of the announcements, the sides traded fire again in the countdown to the ceasefire. Sirens warned of incoming rockets in Israeli border communities, and a Reuters reporter heard an air strike in Gaza.

Diplomatic efforts had intensified on Thursday in the hope of securing a ceasefire.

UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric confirmed earlier in the day that UN Middle East Envoy Tor Wennesland was in Qatar. US President Joe Biden also discussed Gaza with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi on Thursday, with Press Secretary Jen Psaki saying Washington’s “strategic approach” remained “to communicate directly, stay closely interlocked with the Israelis, with partners on the ground, to do everything we can to bring an end to the conflict”. She added that the US had held “more than 80 engagements with senior leaders in Israel, the Palestinian Authority and across the region”.

Germany’s foreign minister, Heiko Maas, speaking earlier near Tel Aviv, expressed Germany’s “solidarity” with Israel but also called for an end to the fighting. “Israel has the right to defend itself against this massive and unacceptable attack,” Maas said. “The number of victims is rising every day and this greatly concerns us.”

Civilians exhausted

Since the fighting began on May 10, health officials in Gaza say more than 230 Palestinians, including 65 children and 39 women, have been killed and more than 1,900 wounded in aerial bombardments. Israel says it has killed at least 160 combatants in Gaza.

Authorities put the death toll in Israel at 12, with hundreds of people treated for injuries in rocket attacks that have caused panic and sent people rushing into shelters.

Israel said some 4,000 rockets have been launched at it from Gaza, some falling short and others shot down by its Iron Dome air defences.

Civilians on both sides are exhausted by fear and grief, the International Committee of the Red Cross said. “People in Gaza and Israel urgently need respite from non-stop hostilities,” said Fabrizio Carboni, regional director for the Middle East.

An international peace process aimed at creating a Palestinian state free of Israeli occupation and guaranteeing Israel’s security has been frozen since 2014.

Hamas, regarded by the West as a terrorist organisation, has not been part of the mainstream Palestine Liberation Organization’s engagement with Israel, which led to interim peace deals in the 1990s and the establishment of limited Palestinian self-rule in the occupied West Bank.

(FRANCE 24 with REUTERS and AFP)

Originally published on France24