MOSCOW, May 15. /TASS/. Khaled Mashaal, the political leader of the Hamas radical movement abroad, said the group was ready to cease fire in the Gaza Strip, the Times of Israel reported on Friday citing a Turkish news agency.

According to the paper, Israel has left the Hamas initiative unanswered so far.

The clashes between Palestinians and Israeli police officers were triggered by an Israeli court’s ruling to evict several Palestinian families from the city’s Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood where they had been living for over half a century and hand the property over to Jewish resettlers on the grounds that these homes had belonged to them before 1948.

According to Gaza’s Health Ministry, Israeli strikes that have continued since May 10 have killed 126 Palestinians and left no less than 950 others wounded. Palestinian radicals’ rocket attacks on Israeli cities have killed at least nine Israelis, according to reports.