Israel agreed to a ceasefire that could take place as early as Friday, following a Diplomatic-Security Cabinet meeting that lasted almost 3 hours on Thursday.
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Shortly after the decision, Hamas told Reuters the ceasefire was expected to take effect at 2 a.m., but Egyptian sources told Israel Hayom that this would only be a temporary truce that would become permanent only after a 3-day "probationary period."
According to a statement published shortly after the meeting, the decision was made unanimously by the cabinet ministers, who "adopted the recommendations of all the security officials to accept the Egyptian proposal."
The statement said that the official start of the ceasefire would be determined in the following hours in coordination with the Egyptian mediators. Shortly after the announcements were made, another barrage of rockets was fired on Israeli communities near Gaza.
In the hours leading up to the decision, there were reports that Israel had told Egyptian mediators that it was going to stop its strikes on Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip and end Operation Guardian of the Walls, the Arabic-language outlet Al-Jazeera reported on Thursday.
