A cease­fire be­tween Is­rael and Hamas came in­to ef­fect in Gaza on Fri­day, the mil­i­tary said, hours af­ter Is­rael’s Cab­i­net ap­proved a deal to pause the fight­ing and ex­change the re­main­ing hostages for Pales­tin­ian pris­on­ers.

Tens of thou­sands of peo­ple who had gath­ered in Wa­di Gaza in cen­tral Gaza start­ed walk­ing north af­ter the Is­raeli mil­i­tary’s an­nounce­ment at noon lo­cal time. Be­fore­hand, Pales­tini­ans re­port­ed heavy shelling in parts of Gaza through­out Fri­day morn­ing, but no sig­nif­i­cant bom­bard­ment was re­port­ed af­ter.

The cease­fire marks a key step to­ward end­ing a ru­inous two-year war that has killed tens of thou­sands of Pales­tini­ans, re­duced much of Gaza to rub­ble, desta­bi­lized the Mid­dle East, and left dozens of hostages, liv­ing and dead, in the ter­ri­to­ry.