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LIVE: Israelis, Palestinians Celebrate Truce After 11-Day Conflict | Top News
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May 21, 2021
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Now Playing(May 21) Jubilant Palestinians poured into the battle-scarred streets of the Gaza Strip, and the blare of air raid sirens fell silent over Israel after the Israeli military and the Hamas group halted their 11-day conflict on Friday.
Loudspeakers across the isolated Palestinian enclave blared “Allahu Akbar,” or “God is Great,” and fighters shot into the air in celebration as a 2 a.m. truce brokered by Egypt went into effect, putting an end to devastating Israeli airstrikes and artillery fire that had pounded the territory relentlessly, killing at least 243 people, many of them civilians. Footage broadcast by Arab networks including Al-Jazeera showed large gatherings of people chanting, honking horns and launching fireworks.
Israelis went about their business Friday without needing to run for cover from Gaza rocket fire that sowed chaos and killed 12 people, all but one a civilian.
Threatening to split the fragile calm was the “Day of Rage” protest called for by Hamas in the West Bank and Jerusalem, the holy city at the core of competing Israeli and Palestinian sovereignty claims.
The war was the fourth since Hamas took control of Gaza in 2007 and the most damaging. Efforts to end the hostilities intensified after the U.S. raised pressure on Israel Wednesday. Both Israel and Hamas claimed to have prevailed.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Hamas absorbed “blows it couldn’t dream of” and warned that Israel wouldn’t tolerate “a trickle of rockets.”
“This is the euphoria of victory,” said Khalil al-Hayya, a senior Hamas figure, to thousands gathered in the streets of Gaza City.
Celebrations also erupted in the West Bank, the base of Hamas’ rival, the internationally recognized Palestinian Authority. Its prime minister, Mohammad Shtayyeh said his government would submit Israeli “crimes committed against children and women” to the International Criminal Court.
The tribunal has already launched an investigation into alleged Israeli war crimes against the Palestinians, put into motion after their 2014 war. Israel has said it won’t cooperate and has challenged the court’s authority to open the probe.
The truce alone does nothing to address the root causes of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, making future cycles of violence likely.
Peacemaking between Israel and the internationally recognized Palestinian Authority broke down seven years ago, and Hamas and some other groups say armed resistance is required to win back land and rights. Israel and Egypt have blockaded Gaza since Hamas seized control there, confining more than 2 million people to a sliver of land.
While the Biden administration has underlined traditional U.S. support for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it has indicated that it doesn’t plan to invest heavily in trying to resolve the conflict. And the wholehearted embrace of Israel by former President Donald Trump has left Palestinians wary of U.S. mediation.
President Joe Biden praised the accord, while reiterating his support for Israel’s right to defend itself. He also vowed to help replenish the Iron Dome missile defense system Israel deployed to stop Hamas rocket attacks and said the U.S. would remain engaged in diplomatic outreach to prevent more conflict.
”I believe the Palestinians and Israelis equally deserve to live safely and securely and enjoy equal measures of freedom, prosperity and democracy,” Biden said.
The latest hostilities erupted after Hamas launched rockets toward Jerusalem following weeks of clashes between Palestinians and Israeli security forces in the city. As fighting escalated, it spilled over into deadly violence inside Israel between Arab and Jewish citizens, the fiercest communal fighting in decades.
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