A main Hamas leader, Mahmud Zahar, announced on Sunday a halt to attacks on Israel from the Gaza Strip after two days of their rocket strikes and Israeli air raids.
"Under our commitment to the national agreement, made in Cairo, to a cooling down period until the end of 2005, the movement announces it has stopped its operations from the Gaza Strip against the Zionist occupation," he said.
The decision was taken out of concern for the Palestinian people and the halt had come "in the last hour", Zahar told a news conference.
Palestinian fighters have been observing a de facto truce since Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas was elected in January, an agreement that was cemented at talks brokered by Egypt in Cairo last March.