Israel has accepted a request by UN envoy Robert Serry to enact a six-hour "humanitarian ceasefire" starting Thursday morning.
Serry submitted the request to both the Israeli government and Hamas on Wednesday evening in order to allow humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip; while Israel accepted immediately, Hamas has yet to respond.
It comes as efforts continue to broker a more long-term truce after Hamas rejected an Egyptian-brokered ceasefire agreement Tuesday morning, and responded by escalating its rocket fire against Israeli civilians. One Israeli man, 38-year-old father of three Dror Hanin, was killed in a mortar attack near the Erez Crossing bordering Gaza as he handed out food packages to Israeli soldiers.
Since then, both terrorist rocket fire and Israeli military strikes on Hamas and Islamic Jihad targets in Gaza have continued with renewed intensity.
In all, terrorists have fired 1,350 rockets at Israel since the start of Operation Defensive Edge eight days ago, including nearly 100 on Wednesday as of 22:00.