Israel, Jerusalem: Today, Israel welcomes the cessation of hostilities in neighbouring Syria, but he also hinted that it could still launch attacks there if it saw a threat. Guns mostly fell silent in Syria and Russian air raids in support of President Bashar al-Assad stopped on Yesterday, the first day of a United States (US)-Russian accord that the United Nations has described as the best hope for ending five years of civil war.

Israeli officials had earlier been skeptical about the prospects of a truce, given Syria’s sectarian rifts and the exclusion of jihadi rebels. But Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sounded cautiously upbeat in pubic remarks on Today, “We welcome the efforts to achieve a stable, long-term and real ceasefire in Syria. He told his cabinet, anything that stops the terrible slaughter there is important, first and foremost from a humanitarian standpoint.