Israel defense establishment backs Gaza truce: Official

JERUSALEM (AA) – A senior Israeli official on Tuesday said that Israel’s defense establishment broadly supported the notion of reaching a ceasefire with Palestinian resistance factions in Gaza, Israeli media reported Tuesday.

“The entire [Israeli] defense establishment… agrees on the need to halt hostilities against Gaza,” Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth quoted an unnamed Israeli official as saying.

Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman’s office, however, has described reports that Lieberman, too, supported a ceasefire as “fake news”.

Education Minister Naftali Bennett and Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked (of the right-wing Jewish Home party), for their part, have also stated their opposition to a truce.

The Israeli army, meanwhile, says it has struck 160 targets across the Gaza Strip since Sunday, including four positions affiliated with Hamas, which has governed the coastal enclave since 2007.

The army also claims that its Iron Dome missile-defense system successfully intercepted more than 100 out of 460 rockets recently fired from the Gaza Strip into Israel.

Since Sunday, at least 14 Palestinians have been martyred -- by Israeli airstrikes and artillery -- across the blockaded Gaza Strip.

And on Sunday night, seven Palestinians were martyred, including a senior Hamas commander, in a botched Israeli ground incursion inside the strip.

At least one Israeli officer was reportedly killed and another injured during the deadly raid.

Since March 30, more than 200 Palestinians have been martyred by Israeli army gunfire -- and thousands more injured -- while taking part in ongoing rallies along the Gaza-Israel buffer zone.