Israel and Gaza factions agree on truce

Co-existence Israel, factions in Gaza Strip end aggressionIsrael and factions in the Gaza Strip have agreed to an Egyptian-mediated truce to end four days of cross-border violence, a senior Egyptian security official has said.The official told Reuters news agency on Tuesday that both sides “agreed to end the current operations” including an unusual undertaking by Israel to “stop assassinations”.Gaza’s Hamas leadership and the Islamic Jihad faction confirmed the ceasefire with Al Jazeera on Tuesday, after four days of Israeli attacks killed 25 Palestinians.A spokesman for Islamic Jihad said the group is ready to respect a truce if Israel ends its “aggressions”.“We accept a ceasefire if Israel agrees to apply it by ending its aggressions and assassinations,” Daud Shehab said.An Israeli minister confirmed that an “understanding” had been reached for a truce to end four days of attacks on the Gaza Strip.“In fact there is an understanding, and we are following what’s going on in the field,” Matan Vilnai, home front defence minister, told public radio without going into detail but adding that “apparently things are calming down”.Death tollIsraeli air attacks on Gaza killed seven more people on Monday, taking the death toll to 25 in hostilities that erupted on Friday, Palestinian medical sources said.Islamic Jihad said two of the dead were members of its military wing, the al-Quds Brigades.Israel has said it is hitting back at scores of rocket attacks, with more than 40 fired on Monday alone.In a strike on the Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip, a 65-year-old man and his daughter were killed.Medics also reported at six air raids in the early hours of Monday that injured 35 people, and another two raids around the city of Khan Younis, which left two dead and two others wounded.