One person was killed and 19 injured in Gaza by the Israeli army on Friday, breaking a two-day old ceasefire between the Jewish state and the Strip and sparking critical responses by Palestinian officials.

A 21-year-old man, identified as Anwar Qadih by an Al-Akhbar correspondent, was shot in the head by Israeli gunfire as he and a group of Palestinians approached the security fence running along the border between Israel and Gaza near the southern city of Khan Younis.

There were conflicting accounts of the event, including the reason why of a group of Palestinians were near the border and whether warning shots were fired by the Israeli army.

According to the ceasefire agreement brokered by Egypt, Israel may not fire at Gaza’s border area.

The eight-day conflict that pitted the Israeli army against Palestinian parties in the Gaza Strip ended Wednesday evening, triggering mass celebrations in the coastal strip with locals proclaiming a victory for Palestinian resistance groups.

Two Palestinians died on Friday morning as a result of wounds sustained during the Israeli offensive’s relentless airstrikes, medical officials told Ma’an news agency. Their deaths brought the death toll to 170 Palestinians. 

Nearly 1,400 rockets struck Israel during the conflict, killing four civilians and two soldiers, including an officer who died on Thursday of wounds sustained the day before, the Israeli army said. Israel dropped 1,000 times as much explosive on the Gaza Strip as landed on its soil, however, Defense Minister Ehud Barak said according to Reuters. 

The ceasefire involved an immediate cessation of violence, as well as talks with the mediating Egyptian state to negotiate a new border deal. Hamas has demanded a lift of the blockade on Gaza.

Gaza’s border has been unilaterally declared a buffer zone by Israel in the past, but the ceasefire talks may entail a revision of the area’s status.

The Palestinian foreign minister in Gaza Riyad al-Maliki said the Israeli attack was a “clear violation” of the ceasefire and should not be repeated, Lebanese news channel al-Mayadeen reported.

Al-Akhbar’s correspondent in Gaza said that Palestinian political parties, including Hamas and the Islamic Jihad, have reported the ceasefire breach to Egypt.

The parties said that they are ready to respond to the attacks, but are working through diplomatic channels first.

Two days after the end of the conflict, life was slowly going back to normal in Gaza. Work was expected to return to normal hours on Saturday, as Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh promised the government would help reconstruct homes destroyed by the numerous Israeli air raids.

But An opinion poll on Friday showed nearly half of all Israelis supporting a continuation of military action to stop the attacks and a fall in support for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party ahead of a general election scheduled for January 22.

Meanwhile, the exiled leader of Hamas, Khaled Meshaal, said in Cairo his Islamist movement would respect the truce, but warned that if Israel violated it “our hands are on the trigger”.

Netanyahu said he had agreed to “exhaust this opportunity for an extended truce”, but told Israelis a tougher approach might be required in the future.

Facing a national election in two months, he swiftly came under fire from opposition politicians who had rallied to his side during the fighting but now contend he emerged from the conflict with no real gains for Israel.

“You don’t settle with terrorism, you defeat it. And unfortunately, a decisive victory has not been achieved and we did not recharge our deterrence,” Shaul Mofaz, leader of the main opposition Kadima party, wrote on his Facebook page.

In a speech, Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas’s prime minister in Gaza, urged all Palestinian factions to respect the ceasefire and said his government and security services would monitor compliance.

According to a text of the agreement seen by Reuters, both sides should halt all hostilities, with Israel desisting from incursions and targeting of individuals, while all Palestinian factions should cease rocket fire and cross-border attacks.

The deal also provides for easing Israeli curbs on Gaza’s residents, but the two sides disagreed on what this meant.

Israeli sources said Israel would not lift a blockade of the enclave it enforced after Hamas won a Palestinian election in 2006, but Meshaal said the deal covered the opening of all of the territory’s border crossings with Israel and Egypt.

Israel let dozens of trucks carry supplies into the Palestinian enclave during the fighting. Residents there have long complained that Israeli restrictions blight their economy.

Barak said Hamas, which declared November 22 a national holiday to mark its “victory”, had suffered heavy military blows.

“A large part of the mid-range rockets were destroyed. Hamas managed to hit Israel’s built-up areas with around a metric tone of explosives, and Gaza targets got around 1,000 metric tonnes,” he said.

He dismissed a ceasefire text published by Hamas, saying: “The right to self-defense trumps any piece of paper.”

He appeared to confirm, however, a Hamas claim that the Israelis would no longer enforce a no-go zone on the Gaza side of the frontier that the army says has prevented Hamas raids.

Israel and Palestine worked out a ceasefire agreement that could well be on shaky ground, but the potential reasoning behind the recess could have some real international implications. Israel’s Debka reports that the pause in fighting came after the U.S. promised to send troops to Sinai.

According to Debka, U.S. troops will soon be en route to the Sinai peninsula, Egyptian territory in North Africa that’s framed by the Suez Canal on the West and Israel on the East. In its northeast most point, Sinai is but a stone’s throw from Palestinian-controlled Gaza, and according to Debka, Hamas fighters there have been relying on Iranian arms smugglers to supply them with weaponry by way of Egypt.

Debka reports this week that Sinai will soon be occupied by U.S. troops, who were promised by President Barack Obama to Israel’s leaders as a condition that a ceasefire be called. Once deployed, the Americans will intervene with the rumored arms trade orchestrated by Iranians, ideally cutting off supplies for Hamas while at the same time serving as a thorn in the side of Iran.

“Once the missile and arms consignments depart Iranian ports or Libyan arms bazaars, Tehran has no direct control of their transit from point to point through Egypt until they reach Sinai and their Gaza destination,” Debka reports. “All the same, a U.S. special forces operation against the Sinai segment of the Iranian smuggling route would count as the first overt American military strike against an Iranian military interest.”

The decision to send U.S. troops to Sinai in exchange for a ceasefire was reportedly arranged early Wednesday morning after Pres. Obama made a deal over the phone with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. In the days prior, Israel was relentless in targeting Gaza, killing more than 100 persons — including civilians — during a renewed assault on Hamas. A ceasefire has since been called after a week of fighting, but more military action could soon occur, claims Israel, if the flow of weapons to Gaza is not stopped. Netanyahu has been adamant with his pleas for the United States to strike Iran in an effort to disrupt its nuclear enrichment facilities, a demand which up until now has been brushed aside by Pres. Obama. The White House has up until now insisted on diplomatic measures in order to make an impact on any Iranian output, but Debka’s sources suggest that U.S. troops may now have to intervene in Sinai if any smugglers should attempt to move weapons into Gaza.

“By opening the Sinai door to an American troop deployment for Israel’s defense, recognizes that the U.S. force also insures Israel against Cairo revoking or failing to honor the peace treaty Egypt signed with Israel in 1979,” adds Debka.

According to their sources, U.S. troops are expected in Egypt early next week. Meanwhile, American forces have all but surrounded Iran and are stationed in countless bases across the Middle East.

Municipal workers in Gaza began cleaning streets and removing the rubble of bombed buildings. Stores opened and people flocked to markets to buy food.

Jubilant crowds celebrated, with most people waving green Hamas flags but some carrying the yellow emblems of the rival Fatah group, led by Western-backed President Mahmoud Abbas.

– Reuters, RT, TAAN, AFP