The Palestinian Islamic Jihad movement on Tuesday said it accepted a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip after getting Egyptian guarantees that Israel will not commit assassinations.

"We accepted the lull and we will be committed to it as long as Israel does," said Khader Habib, an Islamic Jihad leader in Gaza.

Islamic Jihad agreed to stop rocket attacks from Gaza after Israel accepted that the ceasefire would be mutual and that assassinations from time to time would stop, Habib said.

The state of calm in Gaza was breached Friday when the Israel Air Force struck a car carrying the leader of the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC), Zuhair al-Qaisi, and his assistants.

Israel accused Qaisi of being planning a major terror attack on Israel's southern border.

The attack ignited Palestinian rocket fire, and the four days of cross-border violence left 25 Palestinians killed, 20 of them militants.

Earlier Tuesday, an official from Hamas, which controls Gaza, told Xinhua on condition of anonymity that a Egypt-brokered ceasefire was reached between Israel and Palestinian militant groups, adding that the truce went into effect at 1 a.m. Tuesday local time (2300 GMT Monday).

Hamas stayed out of this round of conflicts, as it has did since the end of Israel's three-week military operation in Gaza in January 2009. As many as 1,400 Palestinians were killed in that offensive.