Fighting in Gaza Falls Sharply on Muslim Holiday

JERUSALEM — Hostilities in Gaza declined sharply on Monday as both Israel and Hamas entered into an informal hiatus for Eid al-Fitr, the holiday that ends the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

But several rockets and mortars were fired into Israel on Monday. A Palestinian man and a 4-year-old boy were reportedly killed by an Israeli airstrike and artillery fire, and an Israeli soldier was wounded in a gunfight in northern Gaza, underlining the fragility of the unsigned calm.

After nearly three weeks of fierce fighting, other than a couple of brief humanitarian lulls, Lt. Col. Peter Lerner, a spokesman for the Israeli military, said the army had “toned down its activities to the level where we are combating tunnels on the one hand and responding to Hamas aggression on the other.”

No cease-fire has yet been agreed on, but Israel was holding off on initiating attacks in Gaza, and there was a marked decrease in rocket and mortar fire against Israel. Hamas had called for a 24-hour cease-fire starting Sunday afternoon, hours after Israel declared that it was abandoning an earlier 24-hour pause because of heavy rocket fire. Israel did not publicly respond to Hamas’s belated call.

The relative calm on Monday came after a statement by the United Nations Security Council supporting the call for a humanitarian cease-fire in Gaza. On Sunday, President Obama called Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and expressed growing concern about the rising death toll and urged Israel to embrace an immediate truce, and Secretary of State John Kerry also kept up his efforts to attain a long-term cease-fire.

Mr. Netanyahu spoke with the secretary general of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon, later Monday and strongly criticized the Security Council’s call for an immediate and unconditional cease-fire. Mr. Netanyahu said the Security Council’s statement “related to the needs of a murderous terrorist organization that attacks Israeli citizens,” referring to Hamas, “and does not address the security needs of Israel,” according to a statement from Mr. Netanyahu’s office. He called on the international community to act to demilitarize the Gaza Strip.

Underscoring the uneasy, unilateral nature of the latest lull and the lack of coordination between the sides, with each reluctant to be led by the other, Sami Abu Zuhri, a Hamas spokesman, said in a statement Monday morning: “The occupation still rejects any cease-fire related to the Eid. This is a disregard for Muslims’ feelings and their worship. The occupation will bear the responsibility for this escalation and the denial of the Muslims’ worship.”

More than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed in the fighting that began July 8 with an aerial campaign that Israel said was meant to quell the rocket fire and led to an Israeli ground offensive. That offensive has focused on Hamas’s underground tunnels, some of which have been used by its gunmen for infiltration into Israel. On the Israeli side, 43 soldiers have been killed, and three civilians were killed by rocket and mortar fire.

About 170,000 Palestinians, roughly a tenth of the population of Gaza, remain displaced, many of them sheltering in United Nations schools and facilities around the Gaza Strip.

Israel’s chief military spokesman, Brig. Gen. Moti Almoz, described the new situation on Monday as “a lull with no restrictions. The I.D.F. is free to attack and to respond to any fire,” he told Israel Radio, referring to the Israel Defense Forces.

After a rocket hit the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon on Monday morning, the military said it “retaliated toward the Beit Lahiya area,” in northern Gaza, “from which the rocket was fired.” Later, the military said it had hit two concealed rocket launchers and a weapons manufacturing site in the northern and central Gaza Strip.

It was unclear if the current hiatus would lead to a longer, more formal cease-fire, but General Almoz appeared to hint that Israel’s operation might be nearing its end, saying that Hamas’s tunnels, which he described as a “strategic threat,” were now “collapsing in front of its eyes.”

“We don’t promise that we will leave and will not leave a tunnel standing that we know about,” he added. “We are doing all we can to ensure that we are doing the maximum so that we will end with a good operational achievement.”

In Gaza City, people came out onto the streets for the first day of the holiday. The Unknown Soldier Park at the heart of the city was crowded with displaced families. The fountain had stopped working, its water having turned green and murky. The ornate horse-drawn carts that usually give rides to children at holiday times had not yet returned to work.