BEIT LAHIA and GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — Gaza residents emerged today from the smoke and rubble of eight nights of war, celebrating a now day-long cease-fire with Israel. They assessed the damage caused by more than a thousand air and mortar strikes across the territory. Even as some families mourned their dead — something they could not do while the bombs still fell — the atmosphere on the streets was jubilant. Gazans say they made small but hard-earned victories against the powerful and modern Israeli army.

JERUSALEM ― News of Wednesday's bus bombing in Tel Aviv hit Jerusalem morning shoppers hard. In Machaneh Yehuda, the capital's central market, considered a barometer of the national mood, the rumor coursed among the stalls like an electric current. Before Wednesday turned into the day of the American-brokered ceasefire, it was the day another bus blew up for people for whom the memories of buses blowing up are still close to the surface.