- Gaza’s Islamist rulers Hamas announced they have reached a Qatari-mediated deal to end more than three weeks of cross-border exchanges of fire with Israel.
- In the latest escalation, Israel has bombed Gaza almost daily since August 6, in response to airborne incendiary devices androckets launched across the border.
- The fire bombs have triggered more than 400 blazes and damaged swathes of farmland in southern Israel.
- An Egyptian delegation had been shuttling between the two sides to try to broker a renewal of an informal truce under which Israel committed to ease its 13-year-old blockade of Gaza in return for calm on the border.