Lull in Gaza Strip violence

VIOLENCE dropped sharply in the Gaza Strip yesterday ahead of the planned deployment of Palestinian security forces ordered by President Mahmoud Abbas to prevent attacks by militants against Israelis.

In what could be an initial sign of progress in Abbas’s efforts to achieve calm, there have been no launchings since Tuesday of mortar bombs and rockets that have rained down daily on Jewish settlements in Gaza and frequently on southern Israel.

A reduction in bloodshed is crucial to keeping alive peace hopes stirred by the January 9 election of Abbas to succeed the late Yasser Arafat on a platform of ending more than four years of bloodshed.