Israel and Palestinians Reach Truce After Months of Fighting in Gaza

JERUSALEM, Sunday, Nov. 26 — Israel withdrew its troops from the Gaza Strip early Sunday morning as part of a surprise cease-fire agreement reached late Saturday night by Israeli and Palestinian leaders to end five months of fighting.

The agreement also called for Palestinians to stop their own attacks at 6 a.m. Sunday. But rocket and mortar fire from Gaza continued to strike southern Israel.

“Let’s hope that’s just the problems of the beginning,” The Associated Press quoted an Israeli government spokeswoman, Miri Eisin, as saying. “But if Israel is attacked, we will respond. If there are Palestinian factions that are not part of the cease-fire, it’s hard to see how the cease-fire will hold.”

The accord is the most serious effort to end the fighting in Gaza. However, it is not clear how widely it will be embraced by Palestinian militants. In the past, the Palestinian Authority has been unable or unwilling to control the numerous factions involved in the fighting with Israel.

But after meeting in Gaza with several Palestinian factions involved in firing rockets into Israel, the Palestinian prime minister, Ismail Haniya of Hamas, said Saturday that they had agreed to abide by the cease-fire.

Shortly before the deadline Sunday morning, Hamas fired three rockets at the southern Israeli town of Sderot, it told Reuters. One landed in the city, damaging a home but causing no injuries, the Israeli military said.
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On Saturday, Israeli troops and Palestinian militants fought as they have almost every day in recent months. Two Palestinians were killed, including a Hamas militant who died in an Israeli airstrike in the evening, Palestinian security officials said.

In addition, only hours before the cease-fire was announced, Khaled Meshal, the Hamas political leader, who is in exile, said in Cairo that the Palestinians would launch a new uprising unless there was clear progress toward a Palestinian state along the 1967 borders.

“We give them six months,” Mr. Meshal said of Israel. If there is no progress during this time, “the Palestinian people will close all the political ledgers and come out in a third uprising.” The previous Palestinian uprisings began in 1987 and in 2000.