Hamas fighting eases along Gaza border, Israel moves up tanks and troops

Cross-border fighting between Israel and Hamas abated on Tuesday after a day of Palestinian rocket attacks and Israeli air strikes but Israel said it reserved the right to strike again and kept its troops and tanks massed at the Gaza frontier. The biggest Israeli-Palestinian escalation in months, which began on Monday with the longest-range Palestinian rocket attack to cause casualties in Israel for five years, appeared to have been curbed overnight by Egyptian mediation.
But even if brought to an end, the crisis could have an impact on an Israeli election in two weeks in which right-wing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he must stay in power to keep Israelis safe. Israel responded to Monday's rocket attack with a wave of strikes on targets belonging to the Hamas militant group that controls the Palestinian enclave of Gaza.
Seven Israelis were injured in the initial rocket attack and five Palestinians were wounded by the retaliatory Israeli strikes. Netanyahu, who cut short a visit to the United States to fly home and deal with the crisis, said Israel may take further action in Gaza. "We are prepared to do a lot more. We will do what is necessary to defend our people and to defend our state," he said in a satellite address delivered from Tel Aviv to the pro-Israel U.S. lobby group AIPAC in Washington.
The border fell quiet on Tuesday morning after Hamas and the Islamic Jihad militant group, which also took part in the fighting, said Egypt had brokered a truce. As in past escalations that ended with Egyptian mediation, Israel denied it had agreed to a ceasefire with Hamas, which it views as a terrorist group.
"Netanyahu is trying to portray himself as a hero to his people, therefore he publicly denies the understanding reached with the Egyptians," Islamic Jihad official Khader Habib said."Resistance factions are committed to calm as long as the enemy abides by it." Rocket warning sirens, which had sounded in Israeli towns near the border on Monday night, fell silent by morning.
The U.N. Middle East envoy Nickolay Mladenov told the Security Council on Tuesday he had been working with the Egyptians to secure a ceasefire. "A fragile calm seems to have taken hold," he said. Mladenov condemned indiscriminate firing of rockets by Hamas toward Israel as provocative acts that increased the risk of escalation and he urged maximum restraint by all parties.