A CEASE-FIRE to end a surge of deadly violence in the Gaza Strip and southern Israel took hold Monday after hundreds of Palestinian rocket attacks and Israeli air strikes.

The latest round of hostilities erupted three days ago, peaking Sunday when rockets and missiles from Hamas Islamist-run Gaza killed four civilians in Israel, local health officials said. Israeli strikes killed 21 Palestinians, over half of them civilians, over the weekend, Gaza health authorities said.

Israel does not acknowledge cease-fire deals with Gaza militant groups, which it considers terrorist organizations. But officials in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government spoke of a reciprocal return to quiet.

One of the Israeli officials suggested that Israel’s arch-enemy Iran — a major financier of the Islamic Jihad movement — had been behind the Gaza escalation.

Israel’s military said that more than 600 rockets and other projectiles — over 150 of them intercepted — had been fired at southern Israeli cities and villages since Friday. It said it shelled or carried out air strikes on some 320 militant sites.

The violence abated before dawn, after Palestinian officials said Egypt, Qatar and the United Nations had mediated a truce, and just as Gazans were preparing to begin the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

There was little enthusiasm for the cease-fire in Israeli rocket-hit communities near Gaza. Some residents said Israel agreed to the truce because it did not want rocket fire to spoil the Independence Day holiday this week or Eurovision Song Contest finals the begin in Tel Aviv on May 14.

In Gaza, Palestinians attended funerals and extricated bodies from collapsed buildings.

(SD-Agencies)