Israel continues air raids as Gaza fighting stops

GAZA CITY: Israel targeted Hamas activists across the Gaza Strip on Sunday after rival Palestinian factions clinched a new ceasefire deal to end a week of violence that has left at least 50 dead.

In the latest attack two Hamas militants were killed in an air strike in Gaza City in the early hours of on Sunday, hospital sources said.

The deaths bring to 22 the number of Palestinians, including 18 Hamas activists, killed in Israeli air strikes since the Jewish state last week resumed air attacks on the
group to stop rocket attacks into southern Israel. 

On Saturday, Hamas and its rival Fatah clinched a new ceasefire deal to end a week of violence that has left at least 50 dead, including six civilians.

Gunmen began to abandon rooftop positions and to remove street barricades under the eye of Egyptian mediators and representatives of different factions, accompanied by the military adviser to Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas, General Abdel Razzaq al-Majaida.

"The agreement has begun to be applied," Majaida said.

"The armed men are coming down from the tower blocks and the barriers are being removed."

It was the fifth such deal since violence erupted last Sunday, but the first in which steps were actually taken to implement it.

An AFP correspondent witnessed a dozen gunmen leave one of the highest vantage points in central Gaza City and also saw barricades being removed from Jalla Street.