Gaza truce holds with call to stop violence

AS A tenuous ceasefire took hold in the Gaza Strip yesterday, Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh appealed to all Palestinians to prevent a resurgence in the internal violence that has left 36 people dead in recent days.

Much of Gaza was quiet yesterday, though a Hamas gunman was killed in the southern Gaza town of Khan Younis — a shooting officials from the Islamic group blamed on militants from rival Fatah.

The relative lull in Gaza violence came just as Israel carried out its first response to a Palestinian suicide bombing, launching an air strike early yesterday on a tunnel dug by Palestinians near the Gaza-Israel border.