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the big cities hosting parades.
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As truce holds after 8 days of Hamas-Israel fighting, Gazans emerge from homes to clear rubble
• GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) -- Gaza residents cleared rubble and claimed victory on Thursday, just hours after an Egyptian-brokered truce between Israel and Gaza's Hamas rulers ended the worst cross-border fighting in four years.
• The cease-fire announcement had set off frenzied late night street celebrations in the coastal strip, and raised hopes of a new era in relations between Israel and Hamas. The two sides are now to negotiate a deal that would open the borders of the blockaded Palestinian territory.
• "Today is different, the morning coffee tastes different and I feel we are off to a new start," said Ashraf Diaa, a 38-year-old engineer from Gaza City.
• However, the vague language in the agreement and deep hostility between the combatants made it far from certain that the bloodshed would end.
• Israel launched the offensive on Nov. 14 to halt renewed rocket fire from Gaza, unleashing some 1,500 airstrikes on Hamas-linked targets, while Hamas and other Gaza militant groups showered Israel with hundreds of rockets.
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Analysis: With Mideast cease-fire, US pins hopes on Egypt's new Islamist government
• WASHINGTON (AP) -- In frantic diplomacy, the Obama administration helped seal a cease-fire that puts heavy responsibility on Egypt's young Islamist government to ensure the end of Hamas rockets from the Gaza Strip. If Egypt delivers, the United States will have rediscovered the stalwart regional partner it has lacked since the autocratic Hosni Mubarak was overthrown in a popular revolt last year. If it fails, stability across the region will suffer.
• Much depends on whether the agreement brokered by Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi proves durable and halts not only a week of open warfare that killed more than 140 Palestinians and five Israelis, but definitively ends rocket attacks on southern Israel from Gaza that grew increasingly frequent in recent months.
• Standing beside Morsi's foreign minister in Cairo, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham said the deal would improve conditions for Gaza's 1.5 million people while offering greater security for the Jewish state -- but the fierceness of the recent en (Continued on page 33)
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