Gaza groups agree to cease-fire with Israel: Hamas

GAZA CITY, Palestine (AA) – Palestinian resistance groups in the Gaza Strip have agreed to a cease-fire as long as Israel ceases fire, Hamas announced on Wednesday.

“After the resistance succeeded in confronting the [Israeli] aggression … there was a lot of mediation in the past hours,” senior Hamas leader Khalil al-Hayya said in a statement.

“An agreement was reached to return to the [2014] ceasefire understandings in the Gaza Strip. The resistance factions will abide by it as long as the occupation does the same,” he added, using the Palestinian term for Israel.

Al-Hayya, however, did not give further details about the nature of these understandings or mediation.

There was no comment from Israel on the claim.

Tension escalated on Tuesday after Israel carried out airstrikes in the Gaza Strip, in response to a volley of rockets fired from the Palestinian territory.

The attacks came after four Palestinians were killed in Israeli attacks on positions of Palestinian groups in the Gaza Strip in the past two days.

Since late March, more than 115 Palestinians have been killed and thousands injured by Israeli gunfire during anti-occupation protests in the Gaza Strip amid tension after the United States relocated its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, which was occupied by Israel in 1967 and represents the heart of the decades-long Palestinian-Israeli conflict.