Gaza (CNN) -- Withdrawing its ground forces from
Gaza Tuesday for a three-day cease-fire with Hamas, Israel announced
that its central goal was achieved.
"Mission accomplished,"
the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said on Twitter. "We have dismantled the
underground terror network built by Hamas to infiltrate and attack
Israel." The military said 32 tunnels were destroyed in the four-week
conflict.
The declaration came amid suspicions on both sides over whether the 72-hour humanitarian cease-fire will hold.
More than 1,800
Palestinians have been killed in Gaza during the conflict, according to
the Palestinian Health Ministry. It's unclear how many were militants.
The United Nations estimates that about 70% of the dead were civilians.
But the IDF says about 900 militants were killed. It did not provide a
breakdown of the victims by age or gender.
Israeli officials have said 64 Israeli soldiers and three civilians in Israel have died.
Israel is implementing
the Egyptian-brokered truce, which took effect Tuesday morning, while
maintaining "defensive positions" outside Gaza, the IDF said.
"We have no forces within Gaza," IDF spokesman Lt. Col. Peter Lerner told CNN Tuesday.
About 20 rockets were
fired from Gaza toward Israel minutes before the cease-fire went into
effect Tuesday at 8 a.m. (1 a.m. ET) , an IDF spokesman said. Six were
intercepted by Israel's Iron Dome defense system and at least one was
reported to have hit a Palestinian town in the West Bank without causing
any injuries.
Hamas' military wing, the
Al-Qassam Brigades, said it launched "a barrage of rockets" at Israeli
cities as a response to "Israeli crimes."
The official Palestinian
news agency WAFA reported that several Israeli strikes took place
across Gaza before the beginning of the cease-fire. A CNN team witnessed
one strike on a southern area of Gaza City and heard several others.
Officials from the
United Nations and United States, who have been pushing for a cease-fire
for weeks, hope that the three-day pause will allow negotiations to
take place for a more lasting peace.
Why are so many civilians dying in Hamas-Israel war?
Israeli guard stabbed in West Bank
In the West Bank, a security guard outside the settlement of Ma'ale Adumim was stabbed Tuesday, Israeli police said.
The suspect, an Arab,
fled back into a Palestinian neighborhood, according to witnesses,
Israeli police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said.
Israeli police are searching for the suspect and calling the incident terrorism, Rosenfeld said.
The guard is in moderate condition.
'Peace? What peace?'
The Gaza truce enables the 1.8 million residents to go out into the streets to pick up supplies and check on abandoned homes.
The conflict has displaced more than 200,000 people across the densely populated territory.
For the first time Tuesday, the number of people packed into U.N. shelters decreased, said U.N. official Chris Gunness in Gaza.
After the cease-fire
began, residents trickled into Shujaya, an area near Gaza City that
experienced some of the most destructive violence of the conflict.
They found craters and ruins where homes and shops once stood.
People scaled crumbled concrete and twisted metal to rummage for any belongings left in the rubble.
Residents were stunned as they returned to their neighborhoods for the first time since being displaced by the fighting.
One man who had been living at a U.N. shelter walked down his street, Hill Street, saying he felt like he was in a dream.
The man said he couldn't understand what he was seeing -- the home his family invested $100,000 in, now destroyed.
No insurance company will give him money to rebuild, he told a CNN crew in Gaza.
The man said he's glad the shooting has stopped, but the problems are just beginning.
In this war, there are no winners, he said.
Residents are coming back to similar sights in Gaza -- rubble, ruins, buildings pockmarked by shrapnel.
A white-haired man, Hany Mahmoud el Harezen, stood on the roof of his collapsed two-story home.
"I am a wedding
photographer, I have nothing to do with this war," he said. "Maybe if we
had gotten some concessions, it would be worth it. But we got nothing."
Nal Mohammed, a Ph.D. student whose family home was demolished, was also pessimistic about the situation.
"Peace? What peace? We have no home, no water, no power," he said. "There is no peace here."
Israel released a map
noting numerous sites it targeted in Shujaya, which it said "Hamas used
for military purposes." The map cited locations of alleged tunnels,
hideouts, rocket firings and launchings, and more.
Israel: 'The onus is on Hamas'
Israel repeatedly
accepted an Egyptian cease-fire proposal during the conflict, which
Hamas rejected. Temporary humanitarian cease-fires repeatedly crumbled,
with each side blaming the other.
"The onus is on Hamas," Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev told CNN of the 72-hour truce.
"We are entering this with our eyes open," he said. "We have been burnt more than once."
The sentiment was
similar from Hamas spokesman Osama Hamdan, who told CNN that as long as
Israel honors the agreement, so will the Palestinians.
"We hope they can take it and be committed to a cease-fire," he said.
While Egypt has not released details of the truce, Regev suggested it was the same agreement that Israel has accepted all along.
Egyptian and Palestinian
negotiators had already arrived in Cairo for talks, and Regev said he
expects "our people to be in Cairo in the framework of the 72-hour
period."
Key to any negotiations, he said, is that Hamas must disarm.
Hamas leaders say that
they want to negotiate an end to the Israeli blockade of Gaza, or at
least a body other than the Israelis controlling the borders.
Regev claimed that Hamas seeks the opening in order to amass weapons.
Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday that the removal of the tunnel threat
didn't guarantee an end to the campaign against Hamas.
"This operation will end
only when quiet and security are restored to the citizens of Israel for
a lengthy period," he said. "We struck a very severe blow at Hamas and
the other terrorist organizations."
The United States urged both sides to honor the cease-fire agreement.
"The United States has
been steadfast in our insistence on an end to rocket and tunnel attacks
against Israel and an end to the suffering of the people of Gaza," State
Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said.
U.N. Secretary-General
Ban Ki-moon "urges the parties to commence, as soon as possible, talks
in Cairo on a durable ceasefire and the underlying issues," his office
said in a statement.
Regev said Tuesday that Israel will send a delegation to Cairo if the current cease-fire holds.
A Palestinian delegation
was in Cairo over the weekend, the Egyptian state media reported. The
group included representatives of Fatah and Palestinian intelligence,
Hamas and Islamic Jihad, the Egyptian report said.
British minister resigns over Gaza
In the latest example of
the ripples the conflict has sent around the globe, a British
government minister said she was resigning over her country's policy on
Gaza.
"With deep regret I have
this morning written to the Prime Minister & tendered my
resignation. I can no longer support Govt policy on Gaza," Sayeeda
Warsi, senior minister of state at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, wrote on Twitter.
Warsi, a member of the
House of Lords and the first Muslim in a British Cabinet, posted a photo
of her resignation letter on Twitter.
U.S. officials stepped
up calls in recent days for Israel to do more to avoid civilian
casualties. An Israeli strike near a U.N. shelter over the weekend drew particularly strong words from the U.S. State Department.
On Monday, French
Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius slammed the "carnage in Gaza." He also
said Israel has a right to total security.
The U.S. and French governments have also both condemned Hamas for its role in the conflict.
