GAZA/JERUSALEM (Reuters) - The Israeli frontier with Gaza fell silent on Saturday under what Palestinians described as an Egyptian-mediated truce, after Israel responded to the biggest salvo of Palestinian rockets for months with scores of air strikes on Gaza targets.

Smoke rises following an Israeli air strike in northern Gaza Strip October 27, 2018. REUTERS/Mohammed Salem

The Palestinian Islamic Jihad, one of the armed groups operating in Gaza, said it fired the rockets in retaliation for Israel’s killing of four Palestinians at a border demonstration on Friday. Israel said its air force hit more than 80 targets in response to about 40 Gaza rockets launched into Israel.

There were no immediate reports of deaths on Saturday from either the rockets or the retaliatory strikes.

“After contacts between the Islamic Jihad leadership and the brothers in Egypt it was agreed that a comprehensive ceasefire will begin immediately,” Islamic Jihad spokesman Daoud Shehab said. “The Islamic Jihad will abide by the ceasefire if the occupation (Israel) does the same.”

An Israeli military spokeswoman declined to comment on Shehab’s remarks. By nightfall on Saturday violence had abated, with no further reports of Palestinian rocket launches or Israeli air strikes in Gaza.

Egyptian security officials have been talking separately to Israeli and Palestinian leaders in an attempt to restore calm along the border.

IRAN

The four Palestinians were killed on Friday during protests at the frontier between Israel and Gaza, held since March 30 against Israel’s blockade of the territory and in support of a right for Palestinian refugees to return to homes in Israel.

According to the Palestinian Health Ministry, 213 Gazans have been killed by Israeli forces during the protests. One Israeli soldier has been killed by a Palestinian sniper.

Israel said its forces had been attacked with explosive devices and that some demonstrators breached the border.

Israeli military spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Jonathan Conricus said Syria and Iran were involved in the rocket attacks.

“Orders and incentives were given from Damascus with a clear involvement of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards al-Quds force,” Conricus told reporters. “Our response is not limited geographically.”

Israel regularly accuses Iran of aiding Gaza militants, but rarely levels the charge in connection with a specific rocket attack. It has struck scores of times inside Syria during the seven-year civil war there, at what it has said were Iranian targets or Teheran’s transfers of weapons to Hezbollah fighters.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made a rare visit to Oman on Friday. Israel and some Gulf states share an interest in curbing Iran’s influence in the region.

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Shehab dismissed the allegation of foreign involvement as “an Israeli attempt to evade its responsibility” for the border deaths.

The Israeli military said it holds Hamas, a Palestinian militant group that has controlled Gaza since 2007, accountable for all events there. Israel and Hamas have fought three wars since Hamas took power in Gaza.

About two million Palestinians are packed into the Gaza Strip, mainly stateless descendants of refugees who fled or were driven from homes in Israel when it was founded in 1948. Gaza is in a deep economic crisis as a result of an Israeli naval blockade and tight Israeli and Egyptian control of its land crossings, which Israel says it maintains for security reasons.</s>GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — Palestinian militants ceased rocket attacks from Gaza into Israel and relative calm prevailed Saturday afternoon after a night-long exchange of fire.

The Islamic Jihad group, a militant faction operating in the Hamas-ruled Gaza but that has close ties to Iran and Syria, said they agreed to Egyptian mediation efforts and halted the rocket fire, the heaviest to emanate from Gaza in months.

"The Egyptian efforts led to understandings to restore calm to Gaza Strip. We appreciate the Egyptian endeavor and hope for all kinds of (Israeli) aggression to stop," said Khaled al-Batsh, an Islamic Jihad official.

Hamas, the larger militant group that controls Gaza, accused Israel of resorting to military escalation "to evade obligations" of a comprehensive cease-fire that Hamas has long sought. Hamas wants the deal to end a crippling Israeli-Egyptian blockade on Gaza.

There has been no immediate comment from Israel on truce. It has said its fighter jets struck dozens of targets across Gaza and accused Iranian forces in Damascus of orchestrating the barrages.

The threats toward Iranian forces in Syria added a new dimension to what was already the heaviest fighting between Israel and Gaza militants in several weeks. Opening a new front in Syria could put Israel in open confrontation with heavily armed Iranian and Hezbollah forces, along with recently deployed Russian anti-aircraft systems.

Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus, an Israeli military spokesman, said that 34 rockets had been fired at Israel throughout the night. Israel's Iron Dome rocket-defense system intercepted 13 rockets, two landed in Gaza and the remainder fell in open spaces in southern Israel, he said. In response, Israel hit over 80 targets in Gaza.

Conricus said Islamic Jihad had fired the rockets under instructions from Iran's Al Quds Force based in Syria and said that Israel was considering taking action against the Iranians in response.

"We have seen and established a clear link between Gaza and Damascus," he said. "We know that the orders, incentives were given from Damascus with the clear involvement of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Quds Force."

"From our perspective, part of the address by which we will deal with this fire is also in Damascus and the Quds Force," he added. "Our response is not limited geographically."

Iran has sent its forces, along with those of Hezbollah and other Shiite militias, to Syria to back President Bashar Assad in the civil war there. As the war winds down, Israel has repeatedly warned that it will not allow its archenemy Iran to establish a permanent military presence in postwar Syria.

Throughout the seven-year war, Israel has already carried out scores of airstrikes in Syria, mostly against suspected Iranian weapons shipments to Hezbollah but also against the Iranians themselves.

But Israel's mission could become much more complicated following Russia's decision to transfer sophisticated S-300 anti-aircraft missiles to Syria.

Russia deployed the missiles after a Russian warplane was shot down over Syrian skies last month. Russia has blamed Israel for the mishap, saying that Syria accidentally shot down the plane while reacting to an Israeli air raid.

Israel and Russia have maintained a hotline to prevent their air forces from coming into contact with one another over Syrian skies. Israeli media have reported that Russia has become less cooperative since the downing of the plane.

The fighting in Gaza followed a bloody day of border protests Friday in which Israeli forces shot and killed four Palestinians protesting along the perimeter fence dividing Hamas-ruled Gaza and Israel. A fifth protester succumbed to his wound Saturday, the Health Ministry said.

Egyptian mediators have been trying to prevent a full-blown conflict between Hamas and Israel for months.

Conricus said that Israel had struck over 80 sites across Gaza, including training camps, weapons storage facilities and a Hamas security headquarters building. COGAT, the Israeli defense body that handles Palestinian civilian issues, said one of the rockets hit an ambulance crossing used to transfer Gazans out of the strip in emergency humanitarian cases.

"To what low have the terrorist organizations in the Gaza Strip reached?" wrote COGAT commander, Maj. Gen. Kamil Abu Rukun, on his Arabic Facebook page.

In Gaza, most of the airstrikes hit open spaces used by militants for training and possibly weapons storage.

But in northern Gaza, the Health Ministry said that the main hospital in the area was damaged after a nearby Hamas training camp was hit. Footage showed cables and wires dropping from collapsed ceilings in the wards.

In Gaza City, an airstrike hit an abandoned, unfinished building, flattening the three-story structure. That building appeared to be the one identified by Israel as a security headquarters.

Although Islamic Jihad often acts independently of Hamas, Israel holds Hamas, which has ruled Gaza since 2007, responsible for all fire emanating from the territory.

Conricus said there had been no signs of Hamas trying to rein in Islamic Jihad. He also criticized Hamas for escalating the border protests after Israel had tried to defuse tensions by allowing special fuel shipments into Gaza to improve the supply of electricity. The territory suffers from chronic power outages.

There were no reports of casualties on either side.

Israel and Hamas have fought three wars over the past decade, and Israel and Egypt have maintained a stifling blockade on the territory to weaken Hamas. The Hamas-led weekly protests along the Israeli border have been aimed in large part at breaking the blockade, which has devastated the Gaza economy.

Hamas, an Islamic militant group sworn to Israel's destruction, had previously scaled down the protests as Egypt stepped up its efforts to secure calm.

Israel accuses Hamas of using the large protests as cover to stage border infiltrations and attacks. It says it is defending its border and accuses Hamas of exploiting young protesters and encouraging them to risk their lives in order to increase pressure to ease the blockade.

Israel has come under heavy international criticism for what many see as excessive use of force and the large number of unarmed people who have been shot.

On Wednesday, Egyptian intelligence officials met representatives of Palestinian factions in Gaza, the latest in a round of shuttle diplomacy between the sides.

Egypt wants to restore calm in order to pursue the broader goal of Palestinian reconciliation between Hamas and the West Bank-based administration of President Mahmoud Abbas. The internationally recognized Abbas lost control of Gaza in 2007.

Hamas has demanded a full lifting of the blockade, which has made it increasingly difficult for Hamas to govern. Widespread desperation among Gaza's 2 million residents has fueled the participation in the Hamas-orchestrated protests.

Since the marches began six months ago, at least 160 Palestinians present or taking part in the protests have been killed. A Gaza militant fatally shot an Israeli soldier in July.</s>The Palestinian group Islamic Jihad says it has agreed to stop firing rockets towards Israel after talks with an Egyptian delegation.

The announcement on Saturday came hours after Israel launched air raids hitting more than 80 locations in the besieged Gaza Strip after it said rockets were fired from there into southern Israel.

"We announce a ceasefire with Israel after Egyptian contacts with us," Dawoud Shihab, Islamic Jihad spokesperson, told Anadolu Agency.

He added the group "will be committed to the deal as long as Israel is committed to".

Khaled al-Batsh, a top official of the group, told The Associated Press news agency on Saturday that it was grateful to Egypt for brokering the agreement "to restore calm to the Gaza Strip".

"The Egyptians thankfully intervened and exerted huge efforts between the resistance [factions] in Gaza and the Zionist [Israeli] occupation," Batsh said.

"The Egyptian efforts led to understandings to restore calm to the Gaza Strip. We appreciate the Egyptian endeavour and hope for all kinds of [Israeli] aggression to stop."

Israel did not immediately respond, and past ceasefires in the conflict have not always stuck.

Egyptian mediators have been attempting to negotiate a truce between Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip, and Israel.

The Islamic Jihad movement, which was founded in the late 1970s, is much smaller than Hamas and maintains that Palestine, with its borders marked from the Jordan river to the Mediterranean sea, is Islamic land and it is religiously prohibited to compromise or surrender any of it.

Its military wing, the Al-Quds Brigades, became active during the 1987 Intifada by launching operations against Israeli military and non-military targets.

Earlier on Saturday, an Israeli military spokesperson said 34 rockets had been fired at Israel throughout the night.

Israel's Iron Dome rocket-defence system reportedly intercepted 13 rockets, two of which landed in Gaza and the remainder fell in open spaces in southern Israel.

In response, the Israeli military said it struck about 80 sites across Gaza by early Saturday morning, including a security headquarters building.

Among the targets was Hamas' new headquarters for the General Security Services, the military said.

Health officials in Gaza said nine Palestinians were wounded in one of the Israeli attacks and a hospital was badly damaged.

No Israelis were reported injured from the rockets.

Hamas has disavowed the recent rocket attacks and blamed fringe groups bent on sabotaging United Nations and Egyptian efforts to broker a long-term truce.

But Israel has said it holds Hamas responsible for any rocket fire regardless of who launched it.

Hamas has been pushing for the end of an 11-year siege on Gaza, imposed by Israel and Egypt, that has trapped more than two million Palestinians, and left residents with limited access to water and electricity.</s>GAZA/JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel struck dozens of targets in the Gaza Strip before dawn on Saturday, the Israeli military said, and Palestinian militants fired their heaviest rocket salvoes across the border since August.

There were no casualties reported during the exchange of fire in Israel or Gaza, which is controlled by the Islamist Hamas group.

The Islamic Jihad, one of the other armed groups that operates in Gaza, said in a statement it had fired the rockets in response to Israel’s killing of four Palestinian protesters on Friday near the border.

It said it would halt its fire if Israel did the same.

The Israeli military said it holds Hamas responsible for anything that happens in Gaza. It said its air force hit about 80 targets including a four-storey building used by Hamas as a headquarters, in response to more than 30 rockets launched into Israel.

There was no immediate comment from Hamas.

In Israel, warning sirens sounded through the night in the towns and communities near the Gaza border, sending residents of to bomb shelters. Some rockets were intercepted.

Explosions echoed through Gaza, where militants usually vacate potential targets when violence flares, as buildings shook and flames lit up the night sky.

The flare-up began after the four Palestinians were killed by Israeli troops on Friday during weekly protests along the border. Israel said its forces were attacked with grenades and explosive devices hurled by some of the protesters, some of whom breached the border.

Palestinians have been protesting along the frontier since March 30, demanding an end to Israel’s blockade of the territory and the right to return to lands from which they fled or were driven from when Israel was founded in 1948.

According to the Palestinian Health Ministry, 213 Gazans have been killed by Israeli forces during the protests. An Israeli soldier was killed by a Palestinian sniper.

Egyptian security officials have been talking separately to Israeli and Palestinian leaders in an attempt to restore calm along the border.

About two million Palestinians are packed into the Gaza Strip which is in a deep economic crisis, stricken by poverty and high unemployment.

Israel says it keeps a naval blockade and tight control of its crossings with the enclave for security reasons, to prevent weapons from reaching militant groups there.</s>related media assets (image or videos) available. Click to see the gallery.

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Israel struck dozens of targets in the Gaza Strip before dawn on Saturday, the Israeli military said, and Palestinian militants fired their heaviest rocket salvoes across the border since August.

GAZA/JERUSALEM: Palestinian militants said on Saturday they would halt attacks into Israel from the Gaza Strip after they fired the heaviest rocket salvoes across the border since August.

The Palestinian Islamic Jihad, one of the armed groups that operates in Gaza, said it fired the rockets in retaliation for Israel's killing of four Palestinian protesters on Friday.

Israel in response struck dozens of targets in the Gaza Strip on Saturday.

A spokesman for the militants said an Egyptian-mediated truce had been reached.

"After contacts between the Islamic Jihad leadership and the brothers in Egypt it was agreed that a comprehensive ceasefire will begin immediately," spokesman Daoud Shehab said. "The Islamic Jihad will abide by the ceasefire if the occupation (Israel) does the same."

Egyptian security officials have been talking separately to Israeli and Palestinian leaders in an attempt to restore calm along the border.

An Israeli military spokeswoman declined comment on Shehab's remarks and there was no immediate response from other Israeli officials. Israel rarely acknowledges it has reached a truce with Gaza's militant groups which it designates as terrorist organisations.

Earlier, Israeli military spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Jonathan Conricus accused Syria and Iran of involvement in the rocket attack.

"Orders and incentives were given from Damascus with a clear involvement of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards al-Quds force," Conricus told reporters. "Our response is not limited geographically."

Israel regularly accuses Iran of aiding Gaza militants, but rarely levels the charge in connection with a specific rocket attack.

Shehab dismissed the allegation as "an Israeli attempt to escape its responsibility" for Friday's protest deaths.

There were no casualties reported from the heavy exchange of fire in either Israel or Gaza, which is controlled by the Islamist Hamas group.

The Israeli military said it holds Hamas accountable for the events in Gaza. It said its air force hit more than 80 targets including one used by Hamas as a headquarters, in response to more than 30 rockets launched into Israel. There was no immediate comment from Hamas.

The flare-up began after the four Palestinians were killed on Friday during weekly protests. Israel said its forces were attacked with explosive devices and some demonstrators breached the border.

Palestinians have been protesting along the frontier since March 30, demanding an end to an Israeli blockade and the right to return to lands from which they fled or were driven from when Israel was founded in 1948.

According to the Palestinian Health Ministry, 213 Gazans have been killed by Israeli forces during the protests. An Israeli soldier was killed by a Palestinian sniper.

About two million Palestinians are packed into the Gaza Strip which is in a deep economic crisis. Israel says it keeps a naval blockade and tight control of its land crossings with the enclave for security reasons.

Israel has struck scores of times inside Syria during the seven-year civil war there, at what it has said were Iranian targets or Teheran's transfers of weapons to Hezbollah fighters.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made a rare visit to Oman on Friday. Israel and some Gulf states share an interest in curbing Iran's influence in the region.

Oman's foreign affairs minister Yousuf bin Alawi bin Abdullah said on Saturday the sultanate was offering ideas to help Israel and the Palestinians come together but was not acting as mediator.

Peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians broke down in 2014.</s>The Latest: Group agrees to stop firing rockets at Israel

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — The Latest on the Israel-Palestinians conflict (all times local):

The Palestinian Islamic Jihad group says it has agreed to stop rocket fire toward Israel in response to Egyptian mediation efforts.

Daoud Shehab, a spokesman for the Iranian-backed group, tells The Associated Press on Saturday that his movement is immediately halting the rocket attacks.

Israel has accused Iranian forces based in Syria of orchestrating the heaviest barrage of rockets to emanate from Gaza in months.

The rocket attacks followed the death of four Palestinians participating in a protest along Gaza's perimeter fence with Israel.

Egyptian mediators have been in the region for weeks, trying to secure calm and prevent a full-blown war between Israel and Gaza groups, led by the larger militant Hamas group.

The Israeli military has accused Syria and Iran of responsibility in a night-long barrage of rocket attacks out of the Gaza Strip and has threatened to strike Iranian targets in Syria in response.

Military spokesman Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus told reporters on Saturday that the Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad was behind the rocket fire, after receiving orders from Iran's "Al Quds" force based in Syria.

"We have seen and established a clear link between Gaza and Damascus," he said, adding that Israel's response will not be "limited geographically."

Islamic Jihad is an Iranian-backed military group that sometimes operates independently of Gaza's Hamas rulers.

Conricus said Israel still holds Hamas responsible for all fire out of Gaza, and has seen no signs of Hamas trying to stop the fire.

Israeli aircraft have struck dozens of militant sites across the Gaza Strip as militants fired some 30 rockets into Israel in the heaviest exchange of fire between the bitter enemies in several weeks.

The fighting early Saturday followed a bloody day of border protests, in which Israeli forces shot and killed four Palestinians protesting along the perimeter fence dividing Hamas-ruled Gaza and Israel.

The sudden burst of fighting and bloodshed complicated the mission of Egyptian mediators, who have intensified shuttle diplomacy to achieve calm and prevent a full-blown conflict between the militant Hamas group and Israel.

The Israeli military said it had struck some 80 sites across Gaza by early Saturday morning, including a security headquarters building.</s>Gazans reported explosions so massive they seemed to turn night into day overnight Friday as Israeli aircraft began pounding the Gaza Strip since the evening in response to Hamas reportedly firing some 30 rockets toward the Israeli city of Sderot.

The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) said it destroyed 80 Hamas targets in the operation, which had been somewhat expected since a week ago the began staging an unprecedented build-up of forces along the Israeli-Gaza border fence. Sporadic bombings continued through Saturday morning.

A terrorist group operating in Gaza which often acts independently of Hamas called Islamic Jihad implicitly claimed responsibility for the rocket fire, issuing a statement saying it "can no longer stand idle before the continued killing of innocents and bloodshed by the Israeli occupation".

In the immediate aftermath of the most intense part of the overnight bombings there were no reports of casualties on either side, however, the air raid follows one of the deadliest days in weeks as on Friday 5 Palestinians were reportedly shot by Israeli snipers near the border fence.

Throughout the night Friday Israeli media reported that multiple Israeli settlements in the south of the country had most of their residents staying in bomb shelters. But on the Gaza side it was chaos as frequent explosions rocked the strip and there were broad power outages.

And notably Palestinian authorities have blamed the IDF for a direct strike on an Indonesian-sponsored hospital in the northern Gaza strip — which appears to be confirmed in images and video uploaded to social media.

Damage can be seen inside the hospital with damaged ceilings and windows, but there were no reported casualties from what Israeli generally defended as a legitimate retaliatory strike — laying the blame on Hamas.

The IDF official Twitter account issued a statement, though not specifically naming the hospital incident: "Hamas deliberately positioned it next to schools, a hospital & a mosque. For Hamas, nothing is sacred."

The Israeli military further released footage of massive strike on the "Hamas Security Services Headquarters" while claiming "We warned the building's occupants to evacuate several times prior to the strike," according to the IDF spokesperson.

Though IDF statements have blamed Hamas for the Friday rocket launches, other statements also identified Islamic Jihad as the culprit, which often acts independently of Hamas. But Israel holds Hamas, which has been in control of the strip since 2007, responsible for all acts of aggression not matter who launched the attack.

A separate IDF statement further laid blame on Syria and Iran: "The Assad regime & Iranian Quds Force are behind the Islamic Jihad rocket attack," according to the IDF spokesperson.

In continuation of demonstrations which have gone largely unabated since last Spring's "great return march" protests, thousands of Palestinians gathered at five locations along the border fence, where they clashed with Israeli troops reportedly hurling firebombs and other incendiary devices. Israeli security forces responded with tear gas and live fire, and by the end of the day killed five Palestinian demonstrators.</s>GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) - Israeli aircraft struck dozens of militant sites across the Gaza Strip early Saturday as militants fired some 30 rockets into Israel, in the heaviest exchange of fire between the bitter enemies in several weeks.

The fighting followed a bloody day of border protests, in which Israeli forces shot and killed four Palestinians protesting along the perimeter fence dividing Hamas-ruled Gaza and Israel. The sudden burst of fighting and bloodshed complicated the mission of Egyptian mediators, who have intensified shuttle diplomacy to achieve calm and prevent a full-blown conflict between the militant Hamas group and Israel.

The Israeli military said it had struck some 80 sites across Gaza by early Saturday morning, including a security headquarters building. Air raid sirens sounded throughout the night in southern Israel, with militants firing some 30 rockets, the military said.

It said about 10 rockets were intercepted by its Iron Dome rocket defense system, two landed prematurely in Gaza and the rest fell in open areas. Israel's military chief, Lt. Gen. Gadi Eisenkot, convened an emergency meeting of top security officials, the army added, without elaborating.

There was no word on injuries as a result of the rockets and airstrikes.

Islamic Jihad, a smaller militant group, implicitly claimed responsibility for the rocket fire. It issued a statement saying that it normally exercises restraint, but it "can no longer stand idle before the continued killing of innocents and bloodshed by the Israeli occupation."

It was not immediately clear whether Islamic Jihad, which sometimes acts independently of Hamas, had coordinated the rocket fire with Hamas. But Israel holds Hamas, which seized control of Gaza in 2007, responsible for all fire emanating from the territory.

The sides have fought three wars over the past decade, and Israel and Egypt have maintained a stifling blockade on the territory to weaken Hamas. The Hamas-led weekly protests along the Israeli border have been aimed in large part at breaking the blockade, which has devastated the Gaza economy.

On Friday, thousands of Palestinians gathered at five locations along the boundary, burning tires and throwing rocks, grenades and firebombs at Israeli troops who responded with tear gas and occasional live fire.

The Israeli army said some suspects briefly crossed the fence.

Three of the dead were reported in Khan Younis, in southern Gaza, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. Witnesses said that dozens of protesters approached the fence there.

In northern Gaza, a 27-year-old man died after being shot in the head, the ministry said. It added that 170 other protesters sustained various injuries.

Hamas, an Islamic militant group sworn to Israel's destruction, had previously scaled down the protests as Egypt stepped up its efforts to secure calm.

On Wednesday, Egyptian intelligence officials met representatives of Palestinian factions in Gaza. Loay Qarouti of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine General Command said the mediators asked them "to protect the lives of protesters and minimize losses among them."

Egypt wants to restore calm in order to pursue the broader goal of Palestinian reconciliation between Hamas and the West Bank-based administration of President Mahmoud Abbas. The internationally recognized Abbas lost control of Gaza in the 2007 takeover.

But Hamas maintains it wants a full lifting of a crippling blockade Israel and Egypt imposed on Gaza to isolate the Islamic movement.

The blockade has made it increasingly difficult for Hamas to govern. Widespread desperation among Gaza's 2 million residents - who get only a few hours of electricity a day and undrinkable tap water, in addition to suffering from soaring joblessness and limited freedom of travel - fuels their participation in the Hamas-orchestrated protests.

Since the marches began six months ago, at least 160 Palestinians present or taking part in the protests have been killed. A Gaza militant fatally shot an Israeli soldier in July.

Israel accuses Hamas of using the large protests as cover to stage border infiltrations and attacks. It says it is defending its border and accuses Hamas of exploiting young protesters and encouraging them to risk their lives in order to increase pressure to ease the blockade.

Israel has come under heavy international criticism for what many see as excessive use of force and the large number of unarmed people who have been shot.

In the West Bank, a 33-year-old Palestinian man was killed and nine others wounded by live rounds, one in critical conditions, as the Israeli forces confronted stone throwers in a village near Ramallah city, doctors said.</s>GAZA CITY (Palestinian Territories), Oct 27 — The Israeli army accused the Syrian government and Iran today of ordering Palestinian militants in Gaza to fire dozens of rockets into southern Israel, and threatened to retaliate wherever it chose.

The barrage of rockets, which began late yesterday and continued into this morning, triggered extensive retaliatory strikes by Israeli aircraft against Gaza that risked escalating into a wider conflict.

Islamic Jihad, the Palestinian militant group that launched the rockets, said today lunchtime it had agreed to an Egyptian-brokered truce with Israel to cease hostilities.

The new flare-up came hours after six Palestinians died in renewed clashes on the Gaza-Israel border even as the territory’s Islamist rulers Hamas said Egypt was seeking to negotiate a return to calm.

“The rockets that were launched against Israel... we know that the orders, incentives were given from Damascus with the clear involvement of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards’ Quds Force,” Israeli army spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Conricus told journalists, referring to the Guards’ foreign operations unit.

At least 39 rockets have been fired at southern Israel by the Islamic Jihad group since late Friday, with 17 of them intercepted by air defences and the rest hitting open ground, the army said.

Israeli aircraft carried out extensive retaliatory strikes, targeting approximately 90 sites belonging to the territory’s Islamist rulers Hamas.

It also struck eight Islamic Jihad targets, the army said.

Conricus said that Israel held Hamas responsible for the fire, even though it was carried out by Islamic Jihad at the behest of Syria and its ally Iran.

“We hold Hamas responsible for everything coming from Gaza,” he said.

Conricus said Israel would also retaliate against the Syrian government and Iran’s Quds Force, and would choose where.

“Part of the address by which we will deal with this fire is also in Damascus and the Quds Force,” he said. “Our response is not limited geographically.”

The armed wing of Islamic Jihad, the second largest militant group in Gaza, initially threatened to continue and expand its rocket fire.

But this afternoon, the group’s spokesman announced an immediate ceasefire, saying Egypt had negotiated a truce with Israel.

“A comprehensive ceasefire agreement was reached which came into force immediately in exchange for a halt to the Israeli aggression,” Islamic Jihad spokesman Dawoud Shihab told AFP.

Israeli security officials refused to comment on any truce, but confirmed there had been no fire from either side since the Islamic Jihad announcement.

The biggest rocket barrage from Gaza in months came despite talk of progress towards an Egyptian-brokered deal to end months of often violent protests along the border in return for an easing of Israel’s crippling 11-year blockade.

Today, Israel reopened the people and goods border crossings with Gaza and on Wednesday renewed the flow of Qatar-funded fuel to the Palestinian enclave, in an indication of its confidence that Hamas would rein in violence.

The Friday border marches however drew 16,000 protesters, some of them clashing with Israeli soldiers.

Five Palestinians were shot dead by Israeli fire in separate incidents along the border fence, the Gaza health ministry said.

A sixth died when a hand grenade he was holding exploded accidentally, witnesses said.

There were no reports of deaths in Gaza as a result of the Israeli air strikes, which continued until late Saturday morning.

The Israeli army said it was a major headquarters of Hamas.

Israel has fought three wars since 2008 with Hamas and its allies, including Islamic Jihad, and Egypt and the United Nations have been leading diplomatic efforts to avert a fourth.

Saleh an-Nami, a political analyst in Gaza, said the rocket fire would weaken Hamas’s efforts to reach a long-term truce and showed it was unable to impose its position on other factions.

“It embarrasses Hamas in front of regional and global mediators that are intervening to achieve a truce,” he told AFP.

Palestinians have gathered for protests along the border at least weekly since March 30.

At least 213 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire in Gaza since the protests began, according to figures collated by AFP.

The majority have died during protests, while smaller numbers have been killed by air strikes or tank fire.

One Israeli soldier was shot dead by a Palestinian sniper over the same period.

The protesters are calling to be allowed to return to lands their families fled or were expelled from in the 1948 war that accompanied Israel’s creation.

They are also protesting against the Israeli blockade. — AFP</s>GAZA/JERUSALEM: Palestinian fighters said on Saturday they would halt attacks into Israel from the Gaza Strip after they fired the heaviest rocket salvoes across the border since August. The Palestinian Islamic Jihad, one of the armed groups that operates in Gaza, said it fired the rockets in retaliation for Israel’s killing of four Palestinian protesters on Friday. Israel in response struck dozens of targets in the Gaza Strip on Saturday. A spokesman for the militants said an Egyptian-mediated truce had been reached.

“After contacts between the Islamic Jihad leadership and the brothers in Egypt it was agreed that a comprehensive ceasefire will begin immediately,” spokesman Daoud Shehab said. “The Islamic Jihad will abide by the ceasefire if the occupation (Israel) does the same.” Egyptian security officials have been talking separately to Israeli and Palestinian leaders in an attempt to restore calm along the border. An Israeli military spokeswoman declined comment on Shehab’s remarks and there was no immediate response from other Israeli officials. Israel rarely acknowledges it has reached a truce with Gaza’s fighters whom it designates as terrorist organisations.

 Earlier, Israeli military spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Jonathan Conricus accused Syria and Iran of involvement in the rocket attack.

 “Orders and incentives were given from Damascus with a clear involvement of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards al Quds force,” Conricus told reporters. “Our response is not limited geographically.” Israel regularly accuses Iran of aiding Gaza militants, but rarely levels the charge in connection with a specific rocket attack.

 Shehab dismissed the allegation as “an Israeli attempt to escape its responsibility” for Friday’s protest deaths.

 There were no casualties reported from the heavy exchange of fire in either Israel or Gaza, which is controlled by Hamas.

 The Israeli military said it holds Hamas accountable for the events in Gaza. It said its air force hit more than 80 targets including one used by Hamas as a headquarters, in response to more than 30 rockets launched into Israel. There was no immediate comment from Hamas.

 The flare-up began after the four Palestinians were killed on Friday during weekly protests. Israel said its forces were attacked with explosive devices and some demonstrators breached the border.

 Palestinians have been protesting along the frontier since March 30, demanding an end to an Israeli blockade and the right to return to lands from which they fled or were driven from when Israel was founded in 1948.

 According to the Palestinian Health Ministry, 213 Gazans have been killed by Israeli forces during the protests. An Israeli soldier was killed by a Palestinian sniper.

 About two million Palestinians are packed into the Gaza Strip which is in a deep economic crisis. Israel says it keeps a naval blockade and tight control of its land crossings with the enclave for security reasons.

 — Reuters
Israel responds to 40 Palestinian rockets with 80 air strikes on what Israel states are Iranian and Hamas-controlled weapon factories in Gaza. An Egypt-meditated ceasefire is announced by Islamic Jihad soon afterward.