Israeli Raz Elraz will, for the first time, be able to take his 14-month-old son to a playground if the truce with Gaza holds in this rocket-scarred town. Just a few miles away, in Gaza, Palestinian Ahmad al-Smari said he sleeps, eats and farms in fear after his 6-year-old cousin was killed by an Israeli missile last week.
But the lives of both men could change after a truce between Israel and Gaza's Hamas rulers took effect Thursday. The quiet raised hopes among skeptical residents on both sides of the border that life could soon return to normal.
The cease-fire was meant to end Palestinian rocket barrages and Israeli reprisals in Gaza that have killed more than 400 Palestinians — many of them civilians — and seven Israelis in fighting since the Islamic Hamas seized control of the Gaza Strip a year ago.
Halting all violence is the first step of the six-month deal. If it holds, in succeeding stages Israel will ease its blockade on Gaza and negotiations will resume on release of an Israeli soldier held for two years by Hamas-linked forces and on opening the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert will fly to Egypt next week for talks with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, Olmert's office said Thursday. The statement indicated the talks were not linked with a prisoner exchange, but Israel's chief negotiator on the prisoner issue is also due in Egypt on Tuesday.
Israel will invade Gaza if truce fails
Much is at stake. If the truce fails, Israel has warned it will launch a large-scale invasion of Gaza, despite warnings of high casualties on both sides. That could prompt the moderate West Bank government of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to call off U.S.-backed peace talks with Israel.
While Abbas has little control over the daily life of the 1.4 million Palestinians in Gaza since Hamas overran the territory and ousted his security forces, he wants to strengthen his image in both territories as he tries to negotiate with Israel.
Southern Israel was quiet Thursday, but the last truce, in November 2006, have lasted only weeks.
Shell-shocked Israelis were skeptical. "I give it a week at the most." said David Cohen, 38, as he sold cigarettes and soda at his kiosk. "I pray that it will last longer, but I consider each day more a bonus."
Even so, Cohen said he hoped to take his children out for a bike ride on Saturday for the first time in years.
Elraz said he didn't trust the truce enough yet to let his son Itai play outside.
"It will take a very long time to persuade Sderot residents that there is calm," Elraz, 30, said from the bar of his pizza restaurant. "We need peace. As long as there is no peace, there is no quiet and there's still war."
Al-Smari also wasn't ready to be too hopeful.
"We want a real end to all violence, to feel like we are human, to sleep without fear and to farm without fear, to eat, drink, study, travel," said al-Smari, 38, from the southern Gaza Strip. "I don't think that Israel is ready to give that to us now."
Sderot, less than a mile from Gaza, has borne the brunt of Palestinian rocket attacks over the past seven years, killing 13 people, wounding dozens more, causing millions of dollars in damage and disrupting daily life. More than 1,000 projectiles have exploded in the town of around 20,000 people over the past year alone.
For many Palestinians, the key was opening the crossings. Israel's deputy defense minister said more trucks would cross into Gaza with vital supplies starting Sunday, and a week later, building supplies would be let through.
"I don't want to have too much hope until I see something really coming through the crossing," Issa Ali, 55, said as he smoked a water pipe outside his idle cement block factory near the Karni crossing with Israel. "Life has stopped in Gaza for the past year ... Will Gaza rise again? I do not know. You can ask them," he said, pointing his finger to the Israeli side of the border.
The yearlong international boycott of the Hamas regime has plunged crowded Gaza ever deeper into poverty. About 80 percent of its 1.4 million residents depend on food aid, according to U.N. figures.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon expressed hope that the truce would "provide security and an easing of the humanitarian situation in Gaza and end rocket and mortar attacks against Israeli targets."
Officials skeptical on both sides
As the sun set on the first day of the truce, which took effect at 6 a.m., there were no reports of fighting.
Combatants on both sides had little to do on Thursday. On the Israeli side of the Kissufim crossing, Israeli soldiers played soccer near their tanks. In the southern Gaza town of Rafah, grinning Hamas security men in camouflage uniforms played ping-pong while their colleagues sat nearby, their guns resting on their laps.
Along Gaza's border fence with Israel, Palestinian teenagers celebrated the truce by riding bicycles in the area that just a day earlier was a combat zone.
Officials on both sides mirrored their citizens' skepticism.
Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev said Israel would "fully implement all its commitments" but added, "Our eyes are open, we are closely following what the other side is doing."
In Paris, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak told reporters the truce might last only days or weeks. "It is a very fragile cease fire, but we think that before we enter a major (military) operation, we should give it a chance," he said.
Hamas does not recognize Israel and refuses to renounce violence. Israel, the U.S. and EU regard the Islamists as a terror organization and do not deal with it, so Egypt had to act as a mediator, working for months to hammer out the unsigned truce accord.
In an e-mail message to reporters, the Hamas military wing declared itself "completely and comprehensively" committed to the truce. But it that Hamas gunmen were ready to "launch a military strike that will shake the Zionist entity state" if Israel did not abide by all its commitments.