Gaza City (Palestinian Territories) (AFP) - Islamic Jihad militants on Sunday agreed terms of an Egyptian-brokered truce with Israel, intended to end three days of intense conflict that has left at least 43 Palestinians dead.
The deal, expected to come into effect at 11:30 pm (2030 GMT) on Sunday, raises hopes of an imminent cessation of the worst fighting in Gaza since an 11-day war last year devastated the impoverished Palestinian coastal territory.
"A short while ago the wording of the Egyptian truce agreement was reached," senior Islamic Jihad member Mohammad al-Hindi said in a statement.
The militant movement confirmed the timing of the ceasefire but said it "reserves the right to respond to any Zionist aggression", according to a statement.
As Islamic Jihad confirmed it agreed to the truce, Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid was still meeting with Israeli security officials.
Earlier in the day, an Egyptian security source said that Israel "has accepted" a ceasefire.
Since Friday, Israel has carried out heavy aerial and artillery bombardment of Islamic Jihad positions in Gaza, with the militants firing hundreds of rockets in retaliation.
Multiple air raid sirens sounded hours before the expected truce.
Gaza's health ministry on Sunday evening raised the death toll to 43 including 15 children, with more than 300 people wounded in the Palestinian enclave, which is run by the Islamist group Hamas.
Three people in Israel have been wounded by shrapnel over the same period, while 31 others have been lightly hurt, emergency services said on Sunday.
Islamic Jihad's Hindi said the ceasefire deal "contains Egypt's commitment to work towards the release of two prisoners".
The pair were named as Bassem al-Saadi, a senior figure in the group's political wing who was recently arrested in the occupied West Bank, and Khalil Awawdeh, a militant also in Israeli detention.
'Terrifying'
Buildings in Gaza have been reduced to rubble, while Israelis have been forced to shelter from a barrage of rockets.
Nour Abu Sultan, who lives in the west of Gaza, said earlier Sunday that she was "awaiting the declaration of the ceasefire on tenterhooks".
"We haven't slept for days (due to) heat and shelling and rockets, the sound of aircrafts hovering above us...is terrifying," the 29-year-old said.
Dalia Harel, a resident in the Israeli town of Sderot close to the Gaza border, said she was "disappointed" at news of a truce despite her five children being "traumatised".
"We're tired of having a military operation every year," she said."We need our military and political leaders to get it over with once and for all...we're not for war, but we can't go on like this."
An AFP photographer saw two rockets being intercepted in the centre of Israel's commercial capital Tel Aviv on Sunday evening.
Two Islamic Jihad rockets earlier in the day had targeted Jerusalem, but they were shot down by the Israeli army.
Islamic Jihad is aligned with Hamas but often acts independently.Hamas has fought four wars with Israel since seizing control of Gaza in 2007, including the conflict last May.
The Israeli army has said the entire "senior leadership of the military wing of the Islamic Jihad in Gaza has been neutralised".
Muhammad Abu Salmiya, director general of the Shifa hospital in Gaza City, said medics were treating wounded people in a "very bad condition", warning of dire shortages of drugs and fuel to run power generators.
"Every minute we receive injured people," he said earlier Sunday.
Top militants killed
The army said it had struck over a hundred Islamic Jihad positions, with the militants firing hundreds of rockets and mortars, some of them falling short inside Gaza.
Israel said it had "irrefutable" evidence that a stray rocket fired by Islamic Jihad was responsible for the deaths of several children in Gaza's northern Jabalia area on Saturday.
An AFP photographer saw six dead bodies at the hospital there, including three minors.
"We came running to the place and found body parts lying on the ground...they were torn-apart children," said Muhammad Abu Sadaa, describing the devastation in Jabalia.
Amid the high tensions, Jews in Israel-annexed east Jerusalem marked the Tisha Be'av fasting day Sunday at the Al-Aqsa mosque compound, known in Judaism as the Temple Mount.
Some Palestinians shouted "God is greatest" in response, and an AFP photographer was briefly detained by Israeli police, but commemorations passed without major incident.
Israel has said it was necessary to launch a "pre-emptive" operation Friday against Islamic Jihad, which it said was planning an imminent attack.
The army has killed senior leaders of Islamic Jihad in Gaza, including Taysir al-Jabari in Gaza City and Khaled Mansour in Rafah in the south.
