TEL AVIV—Hamas on Saturday said it has agreed to a cease fire with Israel in the Gaza Strip, a day after an Israeli soldier and three Hamas members were killed in violent clashes on the border.
The truce comes after Israel carried out a wide-scale attack on militant targets inside the Gaza Strip late on Friday, and will ease immediate concerns of an escalation of the conflict.
Fawzi Barhoum, a Hamas spokesman, said that Egypt and the United Nations had brokered an agreement “to restore the previous calm atmosphere.”
Israel’s military declined to comment, but it has previously said that it would only respond with military force if it’s attacked. This is the second such cease fire in recent days after their most intense bout of fighting since the 2014 war.
Israel said it wants Hamas, the militant group that rules the Gaza Strip, to stop launching flaming kites and balloons from the Palestinian territory as well as cease rocket and mortar fire and weekly violent protests at the border.
The Israeli soldier killed on Friday was the first to die in combat with Gaza since the 2014 war, Israel’s military said. Three Hamas members were killed in the retaliatory strikes that included tank and aircraft fire, it said. Gaza’s ministry of health said that other people were injured without giving further details on the number of casualties.
Israel’s military said it hit more than 60 Hamas targets late into the night, including what it said were three Hamas battalion headquarters. Militants also fired three rockets from Gaza into Israel on Friday, Israel’s military said, including two that were intercepted by the country’s Iron Dome system.
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The campaign followed “an event of the sort we cannot tolerate,” said Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus, an Israeli military spokesman, referring to the soldier’s death.
Israel’s Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman on Friday had blamed the escalation on Hamas.
“We are endeavoring to be measured and responsible, but the leaders of Hamas, by using force, are leading us into a situation in which there is no choice, a situation in which we will have to embark on a wide and painful military operation,” Mr. Lieberman said.
Mr. Lieberman said Israel is in discussions about the violence in Gaza through intermediaries, including Egypt and the United Nations, but isn’t speaking directly with members of the militant group.
Since March, Palestinians have regularly protested at the fence dividing Gaza from Israel—calling for an end to Israel’s blockade and to be allowed to return to the land from which they fled during the 1948 war with Israel.
More than 140 Palestinians have been killed, including one this Friday, and thousands injured in violent clashes with Israel’s military during the weekly demonstrations. Some of those protesters have charged the fence, rolling burning tires and firing at Israeli forces. They have also thrown Molotov cocktails and flown flaming kites that have caused several fires.
Israel maintains many of those killed were Hamas militants and says its security concerns necessitate its blockade of Gaza.
“Everyone in Gaza needs to step back from the brink. Not next week. Not tomorrow. Right now,” the U.N.’s Special Coordinator for the Middle East, Nickolay Mladenov, said in a tweet on Friday. “Those who want to provoke Palestinians and Israelis into another war must not succeed.”
— Abu Bakr Bashir in Cairo and Dov Lieber in Tel Aviv
Write to Felicia Schwartz at Felicia.Schwartz@wsj.com
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