JERUSALEM - A five-hour humanitarian truce agreed by Israel and Hamas came into force on Thursday, hours after the Israeli military said it fought Palestinian gunmen who infiltrated from Gaza. About a dozen Palestinian fighters tunneled under the border, emerging near an Israeli community, and at least one was killed after Israeli aircraft bombed the group, the military said.
A break for five hours in 10 days of fighting was requested by the United Nations to allow Gaza residents to gather supplies and repair infrastructure damaged in warfare that has killed at least 224 Palestinians. In Israel, a civilian has been killed by one of more than 1,300 Palestinian rockets fired and more than half a dozen people have been wounded in frequent strikes that have made a race to shelters a routine for hundreds of thousands of people. There were no immediate reports of violations of the humanitarian truce after it went into effect at 10 a.m. local time (3 a.m. ET). Israel's military said it would respond "firmly and decisively" if militants in Gaza launched attacks during the five-hour break.
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