It will be temporary, as the ceasefire is always intended to be temporary under Islamic law, to allow the Muslim side to re-group and re-arm. Again, the practical effect is that the jihadists can more or less decide when hostilities begin and end as it suits them, knowing also that Israel will be held to the higher end of a double standard in actually observing the arrangement. As they say in Israel, “we cease, they fire.”
“Israel and Hamas agree Gaza truce, officials say,” from BBC News, August 22:
Israel and Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist group which governs the Gaza Strip, say they have agreed to a ceasefire after five days of violence.
The latest clashes began when militants crossed into southern Israel and killed eight Israelis on Thursday.
Subsequent Israeli air strikes on Gaza killed 15 Palestinians. One Israeli was killed in rocket fire from Gaza.
The Quartet of Middle East peace mediators – the UN, US, EU and Russia – has called for restraint.
Informal truce
A Palestinian official said that Hamas had agreed to ensure that the ceasefire was recognised by smaller militant groups in Gaza – which were responsible for most of the rockets fired at southern Israel in the past few days.
Prior to the announcement, Israeli media reported that 12 rockets launched from the Gaza Strip landed in southern Israel overnight. No injuries resulted.
But on Monday, Gaza’s Popular Resistance Committees (PRC) – last to agree to the truce – agreed to halt rocket fire against Israel as a “temporary” measure “for the sake of the Palestinian people”.
Earlier, Israel’s army radio reported that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s security cabinet had decided the military would stop its air strikes on Gaza if militants there halted their attacks.
Like similar arrangements in the past this is not a formal agreement, says the BBC’s Yolande Knell in Jerusalem….