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Subscribe to RSSIf the cease-fire holds for 24 hours, Israel will start talking about lifting border control on Gaza. In the meantime, Israeli ground troops remain mobilized in case Hamas resumes rocket attacks from Gaza. NBC's Andrea Mitchell reports.
Updated at 4 p.m. ET: Israel and Hamas agreed to a cease-fire Wednesday, ending eight days of fighting that killed more than 140 Palestinians and five Israelis.
“The United States welcomes the agreement today for the cease-fire in Gaza," U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said at a news conference alongside Egyptian Foreign Minister Mohamed Kamel Amr. "This is a critical moment for the region."
The cease-fire started at 9 p.m. Cairo time (2 p.m. ET). Hundreds took to the streets of Gaza City to celebrate the cease-fire, NBC's Ayman Mohyeldin reported. Celebratory gun fire erupted across the city, whose streets gradually filled with crowds waving Palestinian flags. Ululating women leaned out of windows and fireworks lit up the sky.
"Allahu akbar, (God is greatest), dear people of Gaza you won," blared mosque loudspeakers in the enclave as the truce took effect. "You have broken the arrogance of the Jews."
Both sides fought right up to 9 p.m., when hostilities were due to stop, with several explosions shaking Gaza City and rockets hitting the Israeli city of Beersheba.
If it holds, the truce will give 1.7 million Gazans respite from days of ferocious air strikes and halt rocket salvoes from militants that unnerved a million people in southern Israel and reached Tel Aviv and Jerusalem for the first time.
During the Cairo news conference, Clinton thanked Egypt's Islamist President Mohammed Morsi for his mediation efforts and pledged to work with partners in the region "to consolidate this progress, improve conditions for the people of Gaza, provide security for the people of Israel."
In Jerusalem, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed the agreement, adding that he had spoken with President Barack Obama and had agreed to fight together against "weapons of terror."
"Israel cannot sit with its arms folded against its enemies," he said in a news conference.
Hamas paid a big price for what it believes was its return to the world stage. With more than 160 dead, and over 1200 injured, Gazans and their government buildings have endured numerous attacks. NBC's Richard Engel reports.
Netanyahu paid tribute to U.S. diplomacy and Morsi's leadership, but also to Israel's resolve and the armed forces.
"I am proud to be your prime minister," he said.
According to the cease-fire agreement: Israel will stop attacks on Gaza by land, sea and air and stop incursions and targeted assassinations; Palestinian factions will stop hostilities from the Gaza Strip against Israel; Israel will ease the movement of people and goods at border-crossing areas.
Egypt is the "sponsor" of the cease-fire agreement.
In comments following the cease-fire announcement, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said the army had been effective, achieving maximum destruction to Hamas with minimum loss of civilian life.
Barak added that the Iron Dome defense system was "an exceptional success," knocking down 500 incoming missiles.
The exiled leader of Hamas said that if Israel complied with the cease-fire, Palestinians would as well but they would respond to any Israeli violation.
"If Israel complies, we are compliant. If it does not comply, our hands are on the trigger," Khaled Meshaal said in Cairo.
Meshaal also thanked Egypt for helping mediate the Gaza ceasefire and praised Iran for providing Gazans with financing and arms.
The cease-fire that capped a day of 130 rocket attacks, brought relief to the region but also skepticism – especially so soon after a man bombed a bus in Tel Aviv, then escaped. NBC's Martin Fletcher reports.
"We have come out of this battle with our heads up high," he said, adding that Israel had been defeated and failed in its "adventure."
"It failed, praise be to God," Meshaal said of Israel's eight days of attacks on Gaza, which the Jewish state said were meant to stop increasing Palestinian rocket fire from the enclave targeting its cities and towns.
Hours before the cease-fire announcement, an explosion on a bus in Tel Aviv injured 19 people, three of them seriously, an official told NBC News.
Tel Aviv police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld told the U.K.'s Sky News that the bus blast took place in the heart of the city and that the surrounding area had been cordoned off as police searched for suspects.
"This was a terrorist attack," Ofir Gendelman, a spokesman for Netanyahu, told Reuters.
The White House condemned the attack as "outrageous." In a statement, it reaffirmed the United States' "unshakable commitment to Israel's security and our deep friendship and solidarity with the Israeli people."
A bomb ripped through a bus in Tel Aviv on Wednesday, wounding at least 16 people. NBC's Stephanie Gosk reports.
Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri praised the bombing, but stopped short of claiming responsibility.
"Hamas blesses the attack in Tel Aviv and sees it as a natural response to the Israeli massacres...in Gaza," he told Reuters. "Palestinian factions will resort to all means in order to protect our Palestinian civilians in the absence of a world effort to stop the Israeli aggression."
More photos: Explosion hits bus in Tel Aviv
Sweet cakes were handed out in celebration of the blast in Gaza's main hospital, which has been inundated with wounded from the round-the-clock Israeli bombing and shelling, Reuters reported. Celebratory gunfire rang out in Gaza City when local radio stations reported the news.
The last time Israel's commercial capital was hit by a serious bomb blast was in April 2006, when a Palestinian suicide bomber killed 11 people at a sandwich stand near the city's old central bus station.
Related stories
Analysis: Why Hezbollah is sitting out the Gaza conflict
'We are very scared': Egyptians fear being mired in Gaza-Israel crisis
'Army must invade': In southern Israel, support grows for action in Gaza
Americans caught in chaos of Gaza conflict
Like most Western powers, Washington shuns Hamas as an obstacle to peace and has blamed it for the Gaza conflagration.
A U.N. Security Council statement condemning the conflict was blocked on Tuesday by the United States, which complained that it "failed to address the root cause" -- the Palestinian rockets.
Meanwhile, the head of Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guard has disclosed his country has given fighters in Gaza the ability to produce longer-range missiles on their own, without direct shipments. The comments, by Gen. Mohammad Ali Jafari, quoted by the semi-official ISNA news agency, offer some of the clearest insights on Iran's weapons support for Hamas.
Previously, Iran denied it directly supplied Hamas with the Fajr-5 rockets being fired at Israel in recent days.
NBC's Lawahez Jabari, Ian Johnston and Andy Eckardt, Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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Two sides exchange deadly airstrikes, rocket attacks.
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Israel finds itself at war with both a bunch of knuckle dragging savages and a corrupt liberal media hoping for Israel to be kowed or wiped off the face of the earth.
Most Americans stand with our only ally in this effed up, third world region.
The others back the Muslim in the White House.
your an IDIOT...
I usually do not condone the sort of reply here from you mckajc, but this time you are spot on LOL
I am really just fed up with that type of post in times like this.... I understand it's not the best choise of words.. but....
Be gentile judy and mckajc, It's all his type has now...... :)
Oh blah, blah, blah, Liberals are all this or that, blah, blah....whatever LOL
Let these crazy nut jobs kill each other off... If there is any more trouble from any of these wacko countries...NUKE THEM OFF THE FACE OF THE EARTH!
The WH's take on the Holy Land crisis will be to blame it on a 3rd rate video mockery of Muhammed. Oh wait that probably won't work this time.
Probably that is.
if you are going to mediate a dispute you NEED to talk to both sides HILLARY! and didn't your daughter just marry a jewish person! what a dupa you are! old secretary of state never die they just fad away. I hope!
Terrorism will never be defeated until all of us recognise that the mindset for it is in us all. Not to the same degree as this of course but every time we flip someone off, cut another car off in traffic, or get in the face of our kid's coaches, we are exhibiting the same sort of reactions. What is learned behavior is how to respond to these inherent urges. Here in this country, for the most part, we value life more, and respect our laws to a greater degree, but take that same guy that angrily spits on the ground in front of you in NY, move him to a third world country, remove what he has learned here and a bomb explodes....
.... or they drag his body around with a motorcycle!
Someone someplace will always be hating us for some reason or another so terrorism in itself will never die. If anything I think they should re name the war on terrorism to something else that will get the public more aware of what's around them and what do when something happens. Profiling won't work with terrorism as if you can have a shoe bomber then you can have an undies bomber, or the liquid in some bra pads could also hold other liquids. So why not have all women who are wearing padded bra's be checked? this is just ridiculous but heading this way in the name of security and safety.
..
Good Morning Everyone!
What is happening with our world, are our governments all insane? I was living just outside of London, England when the trains got bombed and I was on the train right in back of the one that got bombed at the Liverpool Street station and if I wasn't 2 minutes late for catching that train I would have been on it. We got stuck in the tube for 5 hours before they had the train go back North to bring the people home. It was no fun, mobile phone service was shut off you couldn't contact anyone and yet they go through this in Jerusalem every day as if its normal. Everyone we could be living a lot worse here in the US.
Muslims are commanded to murder non-Muslims.
error with posting this so I'll just say GOOD MORNING EVERYONE!. :)
Geez, before the election things going on overseas were virtually IGNORED, including four Americans being murdered in a terrorist attack on our nation.
Now, apparently because it's not politically expedient to point out that Obama is continuing to do NOTHING about the economy, jobs, or anything else, what's going on in the Middle East is DOMINATING the headlines every day.
I guess, like Biden said about Obama in New York, MSDNC has a "homeboy" in the White House. And of course they need to keep on protecting him.
I think the real thing here is that neither side is interested in a truce or ceasefire. Both sides have a political point to make and they will say they want peace while loading the next salvo of rockets.
Hamas is the head of an unrecognized political state. Hezbollah is the political head of a recognized state. If Hamas attacks Israel is is a terrorist action and is managed by Israel attacking into Gaza. If Hezbollah attacks it is an act of war from Lebanon and will touch of a variety of treaties and mutual protection packs from different countries. Lebanon has much more to lose by getting involved.
Israel would like nothing more than to wipe Hamas off the map. Hamas needs to fight well against Israel to gain clout among its peers. Hamas wants to be taken seriously as a Head of State political party and a leader in the Muslim world. They are also acting as the proving ground for Iranian weapons.
While I feel badly for any civilians killed in war, Israel has had so many chances to concede from attacking the Palestinians and trying to move them off their land. If I were a Palestinian, I would be fighting for my land and my home as well as the safety of my family. Unfortunately, the U.S. will support Israel no matter what kind of terrorist activities they are involved in. They're just as bad as Hamas, if not worse, because they use excuses and solicit sympathy for the rest of the world to try to excuse their treatment of the Palestinians. This conflict would not be happening if Israel would shut their mouth and stop engaging in conflict with the Palestinians. Just leave them alone, it's so simple. Until that happens, the fighting will likely continue.
Are you that IGNORANT of what goes on over there?
Israel GAVE the Gaza strip to the Palestinians. They FORCED their own people to leave the area and just handed it over to the Palestinians, period. Israel was then forced to build a fence to keep the suicide bombers and snipers away from their schools, buses, restaurants, and every other CIVILIAN place the Palestinians attacked.
EVERY DAY rockets are fired into Israel, do you understand that? EVERY SINGLE DAY! And yet it's only after HUNDREDS a day were being fired that Israel retaliated with massive force of their own.
And you obviously are also IGNORANT of the fact that before Israel goes in and bombs these rocket sites that they actually drop leaflets telling the people to leave the area and WHY. Do you think Hamas is sending leaflets into Israel and telling them to evacuate anything before they indiscriminately fire rockets?
Hamas has sworn to DESTROY Israel, and REFUSE to even recognize Israel as a country, and Palestinians are actually taught in their SCHOOLS that to kill a Jew is a good thing.
Israel has been under attack since BEFORE they were even recognized as a nation. They were invaded by other Muslim nations on the very day they were recognized as a nation. They've been INVADED several times in their brief history.
Read the headlines! While Israel attacks rocket sites, Palestinians are attacking buses full of CIVILIANS!
And yet it's somehow those hate filled, anti-Semite, Palestinians that are "victims" to you?
Really? Leave who alone? Hamas and the Pals launch over 500 rockets into Israel since January of this year and you say who started this confrontation? WOW !
Huh? You do realize that Hamas/Gaza/Palestinians started this round right? Hamas has launched hundreds or rockets into Israel this year, unprovoked. How long do you think the U.S. would tolerate Mexico launching rockets into Texas before we bombed them into salsa?
Israel is using precision strikes aimed at military and political targets. Hamas likes to hide their military and political targets under civilian houses. Hamas moves their mobile rocket launchers into residential neighborhoods to fire them because they know Israel with attack the POO (Point Of Origin) and Hamas can exploit the collateral damage that will result.
You have obviously never been to Egypt/Gaza/Israel and had to deal with all the crazies. I have, and I can promise you that if you actually had to live there for a while you'd stop your "Israel is picking on the Palestinians" argument.
Arafat use to smile real big whenever anyone accused him of being an "Anti-Semite".. He could honestly reply he was not "anti-Semitic".. A Semitic person is one who's roots originate from the Middle East. So, you see BOTH Jews and Arabs are Semitic in origin... The same misinformation is spread by having everyone think that all Jews living in Israel are immigrants from Europe, as a result of WWII.. Actually more than half the Jewish immigrants living today in Israel, are immigrants from Arab Countries in the Middle East! Plus there are many Jews who's families lived in Israel continually for thousands of years. And except for 19 short years that Jordan occupied Jerusalem, from 1948-1967 and excluded Jews from being allowed to live there. Jews were always the majority of Jerusalem's population. Today they have newly invented words like "Settler, West Bank, East Jerusalem".. Doing their best to disassociate Jews from the land they lived and practiced their religion in for the past 3,500 years...
Another case of our under-educated youth; they're quick to open their mouths, but slow to actually put any time into checking facts.
Israel targets high value military targets inside Hamas. Hamas uses woman and children as shields to Israel creates collateral damage and creates sympathies for their cause.
Hamas on the other hand just launches random rockets, and their targets are anyone including potentially their own people within the Israeli settlements. Imagine being so depraved as to walk into a random neighborhood and to randomly launch rockets into a subdivision. Or walking onto a bus and to willingly blow yourself up to kill innocent people. Sorry but these people have sacrificed their humanity.
Anyone who tries to argue that Israel should negotiate with Hamas is absolutely delusional.
Continue to bomb the snot out of them Israel. That bus attack should earn Hamas/Gaza 100 bombs dropped from Israeli jets. Just level the whole area and be done with it. If Egypt wants to play tough guy, take them out too.
What would Koffi do ?.....HAR de HAR, HAR , HAR HAR !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
if the palestinian civilian population don't like their women and children killed due to israeli air strikes, why do they continue to allow hamas to continue to fire missles into israel?as far as i am concerned the palestinian civilian population are responsible for their own demise.
Now I know your just a troll.
Unless Palestine "dumps" Hamas and denounces openly Hezbollah then peace is not going to happen
When enough is enough – Israel it is time to take off the gloves and defend your citizens - no holds barred
No sane country in the world would stand for hundreds of missiles fired at her citizens in a few days without an extreme response. The hell with world opinion or the leftist distorted Media. People respect a country that defends its citizens and not put it citizens in harms way.
This is the results of years of concessions by Israel. To the Palestinian Arabs a concession is a sign of weakness.
When Israel had the policy of retaliating with a heavy hand many years ago, this escalation would have never happened.
I would like to see us Americans tolerate hundreds of missiles coming at us across our borders and bombing our territories our schools and our homes.
The outcry by the American population would be respond with extreme power and stop the missiles, no matter what the cost.
In 1962 the Russians put missiles in Cuba without firing on the United States that almost started a nuclear World War 3.
At what point will Israel and its leaders realize that no matter what they do, it doesn't matter in the world's eyes and they need to stop trying to please the world and do what is necessary for the security and safety of its own people?
At this point I for one think that Israel needs to just take off the gloves and treat those who want war with exactly what they want. It's called survival.
Israel must complete the mission and destroy all terrorists arms along with the terrorists, no stopping until the mission is complete.
No cease fires until all the missiles are destroyed and no further missiles are allowed in Gaza.
Israel has the means to destroy Hamas. Why not destroy Hamas once and for all.
Let the cleanup begin.
I strongly support an extremely strong action against terrorism and missiles.
YJ Draiman. Los Angeles, CA
CourageLovePeaceLive....How do you think the Pals. acquired the Gaza strip? Do you even know who Hamas is and what they are all about? Did you see the video of the Pals. dragging the body of a reporter behind a motorcycle through the streets? You are a very naive little twit at best.
creynolds-2815122 This is what the new republican party does? they take an issue and completely twist it around blaming the side being attacked that its somehow their fault.
Why is Israel our Ally?? How is Israel our Ally?? I read that Israel has more spies in our country than all the rest of the world combined. Anyone remember the USS Liberty? How Israel killed 34 of our men and wounded others when they attacked our ship? Ally? I don't think so. Never was, never will be. They get Billions from us every year for absolutely no reason at all.
A Pox on Both their Houses.
Iran has given Gaza militants ability to produce longer-range missiles on their own without direct shipment, Revolutionary Guards head says - @NBCNews
What can you expect from the Palestinians who were taught by terrorists like Yasser Arafat? They're not ready for independent rule if they continue to act like barbarians. They're getting all they deserve now for targeting innocents. Reap the whirlwind.
Who the hell are you dictate to anyone whether they are" ready for independent rule"? You dont call the shots, weesp, these people are entitled to their lands, the ones that have been in their heritage for centuries. Turn off the Fauckz news and open a book....
And what do you expect from Israelis who were taught by terrorists like Ben Gurin. Some of you people need to pay a bit more attention to history.
The U S just needs to cut off ALL Aid to Israel until they leave the West Bank territory that they stole via Settlements. Once the Palastinians have their own land and nation (Gaza is a concentration camp) than they can survive and be self sufficient...
It was never the Palestinians land to begin with. I'm not Christian but its in the bible if you read it. Why do you think Moses parted the Red Sea? it wasn't because they had better beer on the other side?
@tucsand: ...Sorry, that chunk of land was actually called Palestine for about 2000 years after the Romans took it and right up until 1948.
It is time for the Muslims in Gaza to have their own country - and that country needs to be in Jordan or the Sinai, not Israel.
Praise be to Allah and her glorious Vagina
Another one that has it backwards, are you actually this stupid?
WRONG. The Muslims are the historic, original residents of Israel, if anyone needs to GET OUT, its your white zionists who have absolutely NO BUSINESS being in that part of the world.
All right, lummox, here we go again. The Zionists BOUGHT the Palestinian lands starting in the late 19th Century, then acquired additional holdings when they were used as a base to attack them three times. And since you dragged race into the question...the Arabs and Jews are of the same Semitic race, and most of the time when you see their leaders' pictures, you can't tell which is which.
@lennnox: are you mad bro ?....Those "white zionists" aren't going anywhere, and with the backing of the U.S. (per your boy Obama) Israel will be around long after your racist bones are turned to dust.
Have a great Thanksgiving, my brother.
Obama's Arab "spring" at work at its finest. Obama is a crypto-moslem. OBama + OSama = B.S.
Irving - It was the will of Allah that gave Obama another 4 years, or perhaps it was just the stupidity of the GOP?
Obama killed more Islamist terrorist in his first term than that Retard W and his master Dick-head Cheny did in 7 years
Larue, The mental home called, please return to your bed, you're going to miss your meds.
lennox, your doctor called again. Please return for your post-lobotomy check up..
Behold the majesty of your stolen tax dollars to ensure endless wars and killing in faraway lands. Don't question the logic and rationality of mass killing, or the bogus existence of an Israeli state; just trust the corporate whore media, ancient myths, and government psychopaths that this is for your benefit and safety.
Well said, America must open its eyes and see that they cannot in good conscious support these atrocities. Netenyahoo is a war criminal!
Netanyahu went to high school right here in the good old U.S. and he understands how we operate better than the goofball we have in the Oval Office now; ol' Bibi is playing Obama like a violin, he knows that the BIG MONEY in the United States will always stand with Israel, and Obama HAS to keep dancing to Israel's tune. Obama is a good dancer, I saw him on The View when he should have been meeting with the world leaders who were in New York. You remember that, don't you?...I remember him wanting to be "eye candy"....what a clown we have at the top.