Israel withdraws forces as Gaza cease-fire takes effect

           

Jerusalem (CNN) -- The Israeli military said Tuesday that it has withdrawn its ground troops from Gaza for a 72-hour humanitarian cease-fire in the conflict with Hamas.

"We have no forces within Gaza," Israel Defense Forces spokesman Lt. Col. Peter Lerner told CNN.

Israel is implementing the Egyptian-brokered truce, which took effect Tuesday morning, from "defensive positions" outside Gaza, the IDF said.

Israeli officials had previously indicated they were winding down their ground operation in Gaza, which was aimed at demolishing Hamas' network of tunnels that extends under the border.

The Israeli military said Tuesday it had destroyed 32 of the tunnels, some of which were used by militants to launch attacks on Israeli soil during the four-week conflict.

Officials from the United Nations and United States, who have been pushing for a cease-fire for weeks, hope that the three-day pause will allow negotiations to take place for a more lasting peace.

Will cease-fire hold?

The question remains whether the latest truce will hold -- or fall apart as several others have during the conflict, which has killed more than 1,900 people.

The removal of Israeli troops from Gaza reduces the risk of renewed clashes, but the possibility of aerial bombardment remained on both sides.

About 20 rockets were fired from Gaza toward Israel minutes before the cease-fire went into effect Tuesday at 8 a.m. (1 a.m. ET) , an IDF spokesman said. Six were intercepted by Israel's Iron Dome defense system and at least one was reported to have hit a Palestinian town in the West Bank without causing any injuries.

Hamas' military wing, the Al-Qassam Brigades, said it launched "a barrage of rockets" at Israeli cities as a response to "Israeli crimes."

The official Palestinian news agency WAFA reported that several Israeli strikes took place across Gaza before the beginning of the cease-fire. A CNN team witnessed one strike on a southern area of Gaza City and heard several others.

The truce enables Gaza's 1.8 million residents to go out into the streets to pick up supplies and check on their abandoned homes. The conflict has displaced hundreds of thousands of people across the densely populated territory.

Suspicion on both sides

Even as they agreed to the cease-fire, both sides appeared suspicious of one another.

"The onus is on Hamas," Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev said on CNN's "The Lead with Jake Tapper."

"We are entering this with our eyes open," he said. "We have been burnt more than once."

The sentiment was similar from Hamas spokesman Osama Hamdan, who told CNN that as long as Israel honors the agreement, so will the Palestinians.

"We hope they can take it and be committed to a cease-fire," he said.

While Egypt has not released details of the cease-fire agreement, Regev suggested it was the same agreement that Israel accepted and Hamas rejected three weeks ago.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday that the removal of the tunnel threat didn't guarantee an end to the campaign against Hamas.

"This operation will end only when quiet and security are restored to the citizens of Israel for a lengthy period," he said. "We struck a very severe blow at Hamas and the other terrorist organizations."

Heavy civilian toll

Both sides have been criticized for a mounting civilian death toll in the conflict.

The Palestinian Health Ministry said 1,865 people have been killed in Gaza during the conflict. The United Nations has estimated that civilians account for around 70% of those casualties.

Israeli officials have said 64 Israeli soldiers and three civilians in Israel have died.

The United States urged both sides to honor the cease-fire agreement.

"The United States has been steadfast in our insistence on an end to rocket and tunnel attacks against Israel and an end to the suffering of the people of Gaza," State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon "urges the parties to commence, as soon as possible, talks in Cairo on a durable ceasefire and the underlying issues," his office said in a statement.

Regev said Tuesday that Israel will send a delegation to Cairo if the current cease-fire holds.

A Palestinian delegation was in Cairo over the weekend, the Egyptian state media reported. The delegation included representatives of Fatah and Palestinian intelligence, Hamas and Islamic Jihad, the Egyptian report said.