Gaza, Wars | featured news

Israel and Hamas have agreed to a cease-fire, the Egyptian foreign minister said Wednesday, ending eight days of fighting that killed more than 140 Palestinians and five Israelis. The cease-fire is set to start at 9 p.m. Cairo time (2 p.m. ET), Egyptian Foreign Minister Mohamed Kamel Amr announced in a news conference alongside visiting U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Hamas said a truce had been reached between Israel and Gaza, though Israel couched the news by saying an agreement was close but not a done deal. Hamas official Ayman Taha said the truce would go into effect early Wednesday, according to Reuters news service.

Israel and Gaza's Hamas rulers traded fire and tough cease-fire proposals Monday, and threatened to escalate their border conflict if diplomacy fails.

The olive orchards and wheat fields lining the Gaza Strip border with Israel were always sparsely populated, but on Monday the area was a virtual no-man’s land. Fearing an Israeli ground invasion of the coastal strip, hundreds of families have fled.

Israel maintains air strikes on Gaza and militants continue to fire rockets into Israel as the fifth day of unrest becomes the deadliest so far.

President Barack Obama said Sunday an incursion by Israel's forces into the Gaza Strip could only deepen its death toll, cautioning against an escalation even as he defended the Jewish state's right to defend itself. Obama also warned Palestinians the crisis could crush peace hopes for years.

Israel continued its aerial assault on targets in the Hamas-ruled Gaza strip early Saturday, launching 200 airstrikes aimed at smuggling tunnels under the enclave's border with Egypt and what the Israeli military said were four Hamas buildings, including the group's headquarters, a police station and a commander's house. Witnesses reported that the offices of Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh were destroyed.

Palestinian militants for the first time targeted the holy city of Jerusalem on Friday with rocket fire as Israel and the Islamist group Hamas inched closer to all-out war.

Israeli fighter jets attacked what the country said were "terrorist sites" in Gaza in retribution for an earlier attack, the military said Sunday.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas faced growing outrage at home Sunday over his decision to withdraw support for a U.N. report that alleged Israel and Hamas committed war crimes in last winter's Gaza war.