As Israel-Palestinian truce holds, Gaza power plant resumes operations

Gaza City: With a cease-fire between Israel and Palestinian militants holding after nearly three days of violence, Gaza's sole power plant resumed operations Monday as Israel began reopening crossings into the territory.

Israel also lifted security restrictions on southern Israeli communities after the Egyptian-mediated truce took effect late Sunday. Fighting abated, and war-weary people in Gaza and Israel were left picking up the pieces after another round of violence — the worst since an 11-day war between Israel and Hamas last year. Since Friday, Israeli aircraft had pummeled targets in Gaza while the Iran-backed Palestinian Islamic Jihad militant group fired hundreds of rockets at Israel.

Over three days of fighting, 44 Palestinians were killed, including 15 children and four women, and 311 were wounded, the Palestinian Health Ministry said. Islamic Jihad said 12 of those killed were militants. Israel said some of the dead were killed by rockets misfired from Gaza. No Israelis were killed.

The violence had threatened to spiral into another all-out war but was contained because Gaza's ruling Hamas group stayed on the sidelines, possibly because it fears Israeli reprisals and undoing economic understandings with Israel, including Israeli work permits for thousands of Gaza residents that bolster Hamas' control over the coastal strip.

Israel and Hamas have fought four wars since the group overran the territory in 2007. Hamas had a strong incentive to avoid more conflict, which has exacted a staggering toll on the impoverished territory's 2.3 million Palestinian residents. The outburst of violence in Gaza was a key test for Israel's caretaker Prime Minister Yair Lapid, who lacks experience leading military operations.