AFTERMATH: Israeli soldiers celebrate the Gaza cease-fire yesterday, while a Palestinian man embraces a masked Islamic Jihad militant in Gaza City. (AP)
AFTERMATH: Israeli soldiers celebrate the Gaza cease-fire yesterday, while a Palestinian man embraces a masked Islamic Jihad militant in Gaza City. (
)
Jubilant Hamas leaders and flag-waving supporters claimed victory over Israel yesterday — while Israel said it had eliminated Hamas rockets and arrested a man suspected of bombing a Tel Aviv bus just before the border war ended
Last night, Israeli authorities said an Arab Israeli confessed that he planted a bomb on a bus in Tel Aviv that wounded 27 people and threatened to sabotage efforts to broker the cease-fire.
The suspect, from the village of Taybeh in Israel, was connected to Hamas and Islamic Jihad and was being guided by a Palestinian terror cell based in the West Bank village of Beit Lakiya
After he planted the bomb, which was connected to a mobile phone, he left the bus and called his handlers, who remotely detonated the explosive by calling the phone, officials said.
But the bus bombing — the first inside Israel since 2006 — didn’t upend talks for a cease-fire, which went into effect Wednesday and left both sides claiming victory.
“Resistance fighters changed the rules of the game with the occupation [Israel], upset its calculations,” Hamas’ Ismail Haniyeh, who holds the title of “Gaza prime minister,” told a rally in Gaza City.
“The option of invading Gaza after this victory is gone and will never return.”
Israeli leaders insisted they succeeded in taking out Hamas military targets with artillery and airstrikes.
Israelis and Palestinians alike were urging their citizens to respect the truce worked out through Egyptian mediators in Cairo — while warning that the next round of fighting could begin soon.
“Our hands are on the trigger” if Israel renews fighting, Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal said.
Also yesterday, Israel’s TV Channel 2 reported that the truce was reached after Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi threatened to tear up the 33-year-old Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty if Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu launched a ground invasion of Gaza.
Sources also told the station that Morsi refused to deal directly with Israeli representatives during the high-stakes negotiations in Cairo that led to Wednesday’s cease-fire.
The agreement contains vague language about Gaza’s future, and Israeli officials arrived in Cairo last night to begin talks about the details.
Also yesterday, Israel made a rare sweep through the West Bank, which is ruled by Hamas’ Palestinian rival, the Fatah faction. The Israeli army said it had arrested 55 Palestinian “terror operatives” across the West Bank.
Israeli officials said the eight-day Gaza air offensive had destroyed all long-range rockets in the strip and had inflicted devastating damage on the ability of Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other terror groups to strike again.