Israel's security cabinet voted to cease fire in the Gaza Strip today, ending a three-week offensive which has left at least 1,216 people dead, including 410 children.
Speaking at a press conference in Tel Aviv, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said "the ability of Hamas has been hit hard" and its ability to fire rockets into Israel had been "severely limited."
He told a news conference after the security cabinet voted to cease fire that some goals had been exceeded.
There was no agreement with Hamas to bring about the ceasefire.
Israel launched air raids on the Gaza Strip on December 27th and ground troops moved in a week later.
At least 1,203 Palestinians have been killed, including 410 children, and 5,300 wounded. Ten Israeli soldiers and three civilians, hit by rockets fired from Gaza, have been killed during the offensive.
Without an accord with Hamas, diplomats said today they feared Israel would let only a trickle of goods through Gaza's border crossings, hampering reconstruction and creating more hardship for its 1.5 million people.
At least six rockets were fired from the Gaza Strip within an hour of Mr Olmert's announcement.
Hamas reserves the right to continue resisting Israel "with all means" if the Jewish state does not follow
up its ceasefire with withdrawal from Gaza and lifting the blockade on the territory, a Hamas official said tonight.
"The Israeli declaration is not enough," Ali Barakeh said in the Syrian capital.
The ceasefire comes as Israel is coming under increasing international criticism over its actions in the Gaza Strip. Israeli tank fire killed two small boys sheltering at a United Nations school.
"These two little boys are as innocent, indisputably, as they are dead," John Ging, head of the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) in Gaza, said after the school was hit.
Mr Ging, the UNRWA chief, said Israeli tank fire killed the two brothers, aged 5 and 7, in an UNRWA school in the northern town of Beit Lahiya where they had sought refuge. Their mother, who was among 14 wounded, had her legs blown off.
"The question now being asked is: Is this and the killing of all other innocent civilians in Gaza a war crime?" Ging said.
In addition to declaring a unilateral ceasefire, Israeli officials said they expected Israel and Egypt to announce an agreement on increased security along the Gaza-Egyptian border.
Under that agreement, they said, the Rafah border crossing would only reopen in line with a 2005 agreement with the Palestinian Authority, which calls for President Mahmoud Abbas's forces to be in control and for Europeans to monitor traffic.
Mr Abbas left for Cairo and his aides said he would meet Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak there tomorrow morning.
In a televised address, Mr Mubarak called on Israel to end its military operations immediately and said his country would call for a meeting on post-war reconstruction.
Hamas drove Abbas's forces from Gaza in June 2007, 18 months after defeating his secular Fatah faction in a Palestinian election. It no longer recognises him as president.
Gaza's crossings with Israel were likely to open initially only for humanitarian supplies, the Israeli officials said. Israeli leaders want to link opening the passages fully to talks over Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier held in Gaza by Hamas.
Hamas negotiators were due to meet Egyptian officials to discuss Israel's response to truce terms they have offered.
"Either we hear what we have demanded or the result will be the continuation of confrontation on the ground," Osama Hamdan, Hamas's representative in Lebanon, declared in Beirut.
Hamas has offered a one-year, renewable truce on condition that all Israeli forces leave Gaza within a week and that all the border crossings with Israel and Egypt are opened.
Since Hamas's takeover of Gaza, Israel has tightened an economic siege, allowing in mainly relief goods. Gaza's needs are vastly greater now after three weeks of destruction.
Israel appears keen to halt the Gaza offensive before Barack Obama is sworn in as US president on Tuesday, to avoid clouding a historic day for its main ally. Israelis mostly back the war, but much of the world wants the bloodshed to stop.
About 45,000 Gazans fleeing battle zones are sheltering in UN-run schools in the enclave. On Jan. 6 Israeli shelling killed 42 people who had taken refuge at a UN school. An UNRWA compound was hit twice on Thursday and three staff were wounded.
Many Gazans are desperate for an end to the fighting. Hamas rocket fire has dwindled but not ceased. Seven rockets hit Israel on Saturday, causing no casualties, the army said.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who is visiting the Middle East, again called for an end to the conflict.
Reuters