Egypt and Qatar played a major role in achieving the latest ceasefire between Israel and the Palestinian factions in the Gaza Strip, Palestinian sources said on Wednesday.
The sources said the unofficial ceasefire, which went into effect at 4:00 a.m. Wednesday has reached thanks to mediation efforts by Egyptian and Qatari officials after the Palestinian factions launched dozens of rockets at Israel in response to the death of senior Palestinian Islamic Jihad official Khader Adnan in Israeli custody on Tuesday after an 86-day hunger strike.
“The Egyptians and Qataris exerted heavy pressure on Hamas and Islamic Jihad to avoid all-out war,” the sources said. “The Egyptians, Qataris and other mediators relayed messages to Hamas and Islamic Jihad to the effect that Israel does not want another war. They also warned them that a new war would have disastrous consequences on the residents of the Gaza Strip.”
Hamas, Islamic Jihad not keen on war with Israel
The assessment in the Gaza Strip is that neither Hamas nor PIJ is keen at this stage on entering into a major round of fighting with Israel.
The details of the latest ceasefire remained unknown by late Wednesday.
Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh said that his group told the mediators who brokered the ceasefire that Israel must hand over Adnan’s body to his family in the town of Arrabeh, near Jenin, for burial.
Haniyeh did not say whether Israel had accepted the demand as part of the ceasefire deal.
According to Haniyeh, Adnan’s body should be delivered to his family so that he could be honored as a “martyr and hero.”
Earlier, Haniyeh, who is based in Doha, revealed that he had contacted Egypt and Qatar in an attempt to “halt the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip,” in reference to Israeli military strikes in response to the firing of rockets from the Hamas-ruled coastal enclave toward Israel.
Haniyeh also talked to United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Tor Wennesland about the tensions and violence that erupted after the death of the top PIJ official.