Officials say a ceasefire has been agreed after a Palestinian hunger striker died in Israeli custody, sparking an exchange of fire between Israel and armed groups in Gaza.
Earlier, Israeli jets struck in Gaza as armed groups there fired rocket barrages toward Israel in response to the death of Khader Adnan, a prominent political leader of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad faction, following an 87-day hunger strike in an Israeli prison.
Adnan, who was awaiting trial, was found unconscious in his cell and taken to a hospital, where he was declared dead after efforts to revive him, Israel’s Prisons Service said.
He was the first Palestinian hunger striker to die in Israeli custody in more than 30 years.
Hundreds of people took to the streets in the occupied Palestinian territories to rally and mourn Adnan’s death, which Palestinian leaders described as an assassination.
In Gaza, an umbrella group of armed Palestinian factions including Hamas and Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for a series of rocket salvos fired towards Israel during the day.
The Israeli military said it identified at least 30 rocket launches that set off sirens in southern Israel including in Ashkelon, about 14km north of Gaza, and sent people running to bomb shelters.
Two rockets landed in the small Israeli city of Sderot just east of Gaza, wounding three people, including a 25-year-old foreign national who Israel’s ambulance service said sustained serious shrapnel wounds.
Read the article in The Maitland Mercury.