DOHA/GAZA (Reuters): There were no reports of bombings, artillery strikes or rocket attacks as Israel and Hamas started a four-day ceasefire in Gaza on Friday, the first pause in a 48-day-old war that has devastated the Palestinian enclave.
The truce began at 7 a.m. (0500 GMT), involving a comprehensive ceasefire in north and south Gaza, the release of 13 Israeli women and child hostages by the militants later in the day and aid to flow into the besieged enclave. A number of Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli prisons were to be freed in exchange.
A Reuters correspondent near the northern part of Gaza heard no Israeli air force activity overhead, and saw no tell-tale contrails typically left by Palestinian rocket launches.
Lebanon’s Al-Mayadeen TV reported that since the start of the truce, no sounds of bombing were heard in Gaza.
Sirens sounded in two Israeli villages outside the southern Gaza Strip, warning of possible incoming Palestinian rockets. There was no immediate confirmation of any launches, however.
Fighting had raged on in the hours leading up to the truce, with officials inside the Hamas-ruled enclave saying a hospital in Gaza City was among the targets bombed. Both sides also signalled the pause would be temporary before fighting resumes.
The Indonesian hospital was reeling under relentless bombing, operating without light and filled with bedridden old people and children too weak to be moved, Gaza health officials said. Al-Jazeera quoted Mounir El Barsh, the Gaza health ministry director, as saying a patient, a wounded woman, was killed and three others injured.
Additional aid would start flowing into Gaza and the first hostages, including elderly women, would be freed at 4 p.m. (1400 GMT), with the total number rising to 50 over the four days, Qatar’s foreign ministry spokesperson Majed Al-Ansari said in Doha.
Hamas-affiliated Shehab news agency reported that fuel trucks were entering the Rafah crossing once the truce was underway.
Egypt has said 130,000 litres of diesel and four trucks of gas will be delivered daily to Gaza when the truce starts, and that 200 trucks of aid would enter Gaza daily.
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