New Gaza truce holds after shaky start

Israel and Gaza are holding their fire this morning after a new truce gets off to a shaky start, with night-time Palestinian rocket fire followed by Israeli air strikes.

The Israeli army says that there has been no fighting for several hours, since Israeli air raids into Gaza finished around 3 a.m.

Palestinians had fired two rockets into southern Israel after midnight, after a five-day ceasefire extension was to have taken effect.

An army spokeswoman says that aircraft hit rocket-launching sites, weapons caches and “centers of terrorist activity,” but cannot give a precise number.

An official at the Palestinian interior ministry reports four airstrikes over open ground about 30 minutes after an existing 72-hour truce was extended at midnight for five days.

— AFP