Word of a cease-fire has been reached concerning the Gaza conflict.
The cease-fire, announced Wednesday night in a joint news conference in Cairo with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Egyptian Foreign Minister Mohamed Kamel Amr, took effect at 9 p.m. (2 p.m. ET).
The agreement to end the hostilities came after a day of intensive negotiations featuring Clinton, Egyptian President Mohamed Morsy and Palestinian officials, and was a surprising cap to a day that saw militants strike deep inside Israel — with a public bus bombing in Tel Aviv that injured 24 people, according to police.
Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev said the agreement calls for “complete and total cessation of all hostile activity initiated in the Gaza Strip.”
“For us, that’s victory. That’s what we wanted,” he said.