Israeli army announces 7-hour humanitarian truce in Gaza

Israeli soldiers celebrate from their armoured personnel carriers (APC) along the border between Israel and the Gaza Strip after they pulled out from the Gaza Strip on Aug 3, 2014.  -- PHOTO: AFP
Israeli soldiers celebrate from their armoured personnel carriers (APC) along the border between Israel and the Gaza Strip after they pulled out from the Gaza Strip on Aug 3, 2014.  -- PHOTO: AFP

JERUSALEM (AFP) - Israel will hold its fire in most of the Gaza Strip for a seven-hour "humanitarian window" on Monday, the military said, four weeks into its bloody conflict with Hamas.

According to an army statement, the ceasefire will take place between 0700 GMT and 1400 GMT in all of the Palestinian enclave besides the area east of southern city Rafah, "where clashes were still ongoing and there was Israeli military presence." Head of the Israeli military activities in the occupied West Bank and Gaza, General Yoav Mordechai, warned in the statement that "if the truce will be violated, the army will respond with fire toward the source of the (Palestinian) fire during the declared hudna," or truce.

Mordechai also called on residents of Abasan al Kabira and Abasan al Saghira, two villages east of Khan Yunis in southern Gaza, to return to their homes beginning 0500 GMT on Monday.

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