Israel to reopen Gaza goods crossing after days of humanitarian catastrophe

ISRAEL will reopen Gaza’s main commercial crossing and expand its fishing zone tomorrow if a lull in crossborder tensions holds after a truce with the enclave’s Palestinian resistance group Hamas, the Israeli defence minister said.

Israel shut the Kerem Shalom border terminal until Sunday and reduced the fishing zone to 11 km (6 miles) from 17 km (9 miles) on July 9 in response to kites and helium balloons flown over by Palestinians as part of weeks of border protests.

Hostilities escalated last week, with Palestinian gunfire killing an Israeli soldier and Israel’s military killing three Hamas fighters and a fourth Palestinian. The violence subsided on Saturday after Egypt and the United Nations mediated a truce.

“We saw, yesterday, what might have been the calmest day since March 30,” Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman told reporters yesterday. “If today and tomorrow see a continuation of the situation as it was yesterday, then on Tuesday we will resume routine activity here at Kerem Shalom [border terminal] and return the fishing zone to the ranges previously in place.”

The closures exacerbated the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip which already faces severe shortages of fuel, electricity and water.

Gaza has been on the brink of collapse after weeks of violence have left more than 13,000 Palestinians wounded, overwhelming an already disastrously weak health system, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) warned late May.

Since 2007, the Gaza Strip has groaned under a crippling Israeli and Egyptian blockade that has gutted its economy and deprived its roughly two million inhabitants of many vital commodities, including food, fuel and medicine. In the long-embargoed enclave, the humanitarian situation has gotten worse each day.

The strip was heavily battered in JulyAugust 2014 in a war between Israel and Hamas that killed more than 2,200 Palestinians and 73 people on the Israeli side. Its problems are exacerbated by a decade-old Israeli blockade.

Since the rallies along the security fence first kicked off on March 30, more than 130 Palestinian protesters have been killed and thousands more injured by Israeli army gunfire.

Protesters demand the “right of return” to their homes and villages in historical Palestine from which they were driven in 1948 to make way for the new state of Israel. They also demand an end to Israel’s 11-year blockade of the Gaza Strip, which has gutted the coastal enclave’s economy and deprived its roughly two million inhabitants of basic commodities.

Israel was criticized by a U.N. human rights body for its killing of protesters in Gaza and treatment of Palestinians, declaring it a “war crime” under the Statute of Rome.

The high casualty toll triggered a diplomatic backlash against Israel and new charges of excessive use of force against unarmed protesters.