Cease Fire

CAIRO -- Hamas and Israel agreed to a cease-fire that took effect Wednesday evening following a week of intense diplomacy to stop rocket fire and airstrikes that have pounded the Gaza Strip and Israel and raised fears of plunging the region into a wider war. The truce began at 9 p.m. local time and appeared at least initially to be taking hold. The deal was announced in Cairo by Egyptian Foreign Minister Mohamed Amr and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who flew to the region Tuesday night as hopes for a truce remained elusive amid heavy artillery exchanges.

GAZA CITY - Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton pressed for an end to rocket attacks on Israel and a durable regional peace as she arrived in the Middle East to join efforts to end a week of fighting between Israel and the Islamist militant group Hamas. An agreement appeared close late Tuesday but proved elusive, and in the meantime violence continued. Hamas fired two more rockets toward Jerusalem but caused no damage or injuries. But rocket and mortar fire from the Gaza Strip killed an Israeli soldier and a Bedouin resident in southern Israel, increasing the Israeli death toll to five.

Egypt announced a cease-fire agreement between Israel and Hamas effective Wednesday evening local time, the Associated Press reported. In details of the agreement obtained by the news agency, Israel will cease all military activity against the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip at 9 p.m. local time (11 a.m. PST) and Palestinian militants will cease rocket attacks into Israel. After 24 hours of quiet, Gaza's border crossings with Israel will be opened further to allow freer movement of goods and people.

As negotiators worked on a tenuous cease-fire deal, Israel and Hamas pounded each other for a sixth day and anger rose in the Gaza Strip over the increasing number of casualties. Hopes for a truce grew Monday night when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu convened Cabinet members to discuss the details of what was said to be a multiphase, multiyear cease-fire agreement. Officials in Egypt, where the talks were underway, expressed cautious optimism. Arab League leaders and United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who was visiting the region, were trying to help negotiate a deal.

RAMALLAH, West Bank - The hostilities in the Gaza Strip between Israel and Hamas have raised sympathy among many Palestinians for the Islamist militant group and elevated its status at the expense of the rival Palestinian Authority and its president, Mahmoud Abbas, observers say. Abbas, who views himself as the leader of all Palestinians, has been sidelined as Hamas has taken center stage in the struggle against Israel and received a string of...

GAZA CITY - Overnight hopes for an Egyptian-negotiated cease-fire faded Sunday as clashes resumed between Israel and Hamas and several Palestinian journalists were injured by Israeli airstrikes. After expressing optimism that a truce was imminent, Gaza militants temporarily suspended their rocket fire Saturday night and early Sunday morning, even as Israeli aircraft continued to hit targets in Gaza. Israel military confirmed there were no rocket attacks in southern Israel overnight.

GAZA CITY -- Anyone hoping that Friday morning's visit to Gaza City by Egyptian Prime Minister Hesham Kandil might ease the growing conflict between Israel and Hamas was sorely disappointed. In a brief two-hour trip, Kandil made no public mention of a cease-fire or ending the violence that has so far killed 23 people on both sides. Instead, he said Egypt's loyalty rested squarely with Gaza's people. "The cause of Palestinians is the cause of all Arabs and Muslims,"' he said during a visit to Shifa Hospital.

BEIRUT - Syrian government shelling of areas held by opposition forces and a car bomb in a suburb considered loyal to President Bashar Assad killed and injured dozens of people Monday, activists and state news media said. The fighting came on what was supposed to be the last day of a four-day holiday cease-fire. The truce, however, was broken within hours of its start Friday. Activists reported fierce government shelling in Damascus, the capital, and its suburbs. In the Hajar Aswad neighborhood, eight people in a minibus were killed when a shell struck a building and caused rubble to fall onto the vehicle, activists said.

BEIRUT - The first day of a cease-fire in the Syrian conflict in observance of the Eid al-Adha holiday went as many observers had expected: It was violated within hours, and both sides blamed each other. The four-day truce, which began Friday with the Muslim holiday, was brokered by the international envoy to Syria and was intended to provide at least a brief respite from the bloody violence, as well as possibly begin a long-term cessation of fighting. Instead, opposition activists said 49 people were killed across the country - a lower daily death toll than has become the norm in Syria - including about 10 who died after a car bomb went off in a Damascus neighborhood Friday afternoon.

BEIRUT - The Syrian military said Thursday that its forces would observe a temporary holiday cease-fire starting today, signaling a potential new phase in international efforts to halt a conflict that has caused vast destruction and loss of life and threatened to destabilize the Middle East. Brokering the truce was peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi, a veteran Algerian diplomat who has been on a shuttle diplomacy mission aimed at selling the truce idea to the warring sides and to their international allies.