International mediation efforts aimed at achieving a swift cease-fire between Israel and Islamic Jihad in the Gaza Strip came to fruition on Sunday.

The initial and most pressing need for a cease-fire was humanitarian. Gaza’s power plant is out of fuel, and fuel enters the Strip from Israel. Without more fuel, Gaza’s power supply will be disrupted and hospitals’ ability to function could be severely impaired. This would negatively affect the treatment of hundreds of people wounded in Israeli air strikes.

Welcome as it is, the ceasefire agreement to end recent fighting in Gaza is overshadowed by the fact Iran’s malevolent thumbprints are all over the worst violence in the Palestinian enclave since May last year.

Islamic Jihad, the militant terrorist group targeted by Israeli forces last Friday in pre-emptive strikes aimed at thwarting a major attack on Israeli civilian population centres, is a creation, cat’s paw and proxy of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.

A “fragile” truce between Israel and Islamic Jihad militants in Gaza appeared to be holding on Monday, after three days of fighting in which more than 40 Palestinians were killed and rockets flew deep into Israel’s heartland, in the most intense exchange of fire since an 11-day conflict last year.