Israel-Hamas Cease-Fire Offers No Guarantees

JERUSALEM, June 19, 2008 — -- Sderot resident Alona Buchbut is staying at a hotel — not because she is on vacation, but because a Qassam rocket launched from the Gaza Strip struck her house Wednesday night.

An Israel-Hamas cease-fire began at 6 a.m. Thursday, but residents of Sderot, an Israeli city only one kilometer from Gaza, say they doubt it will last. The cease-fire is an attempt to end a year of fighting that has killed 400 Palestinians and seven Israelis, according to The Associated Press.

The Israeli government stresses that this is not a peace deal, but rather a three-day trial period of "calm" to set the stage for further developments, in which Israel plans to ease its economic boycott of Gaza and allow the transfer of raw materials in exchange for quiet in the south.

The second phase of negotiations will place Hamas as the main power in charge of the Rafah crossing on the Gaza-Egypt border, theoretically in exchange for the freeing of kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, captured nearly two years ago, on June 25, 2006.

"We have no illusions. The calm is temporary and may be very short," Israeli President Ehud Olmert said, according to Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz.

Sderot residents have no illusions, either.

"I don't believe in this period of 'calm.' I'm certainly not calm," Buchbut told ABC News.

In the past seven years, 10,000 missiles have been fired into Sderot and the surrounding area, according to the Israel Project, a nonprofit organization working for peace and security within Israel.

"Thursday will be the beginning, we hope, of a new reality where Israeli citizens in the south will no longer be on the receiving end of continuous rocket attacks," Israeli government spokesperson Mark Regev told Ha'aretz.

However, upon confirmation of the peace deal Thursday, 15 Qassams were fired into the western Negev region of Israeli. Sderot residents say they expect the rocket attacks to continue.

Buchbut said she and a friend relaxed on the couch in her living room yesterday before leaving to go to a meeting. She received a phone call 10 minutes later that her house had been attacked.