GAZA CLASHES NOW A DAILY REALITY
VIOLENT CLASHES on the border between Gaza and Israel intensified over the first few days of Succot with protests now taking place every night.
Three Palestinians were killed over the past week, although security sources said the IDF has unofficially curbed its use of live fire to avoid further escalation.
After a lull of a few weeks, in which a ceasefire seemed imminent, incendiary balloons have also started floating across the frontier once again, causing blazes on the Israeli side.
Some Palestinians have used the cover of darkness and the smoke of burning tires to cut through the border fence, before returning to the Gazan side unharmed. In a few cases, Israeli aircraft opened fire near groups that were launching flaming balloons, without aiming directly at them.
The Israeli government has attempted to lower the profile of recent developments around Gaza, leading to complaints from residents in southern Israeli communities that their plight was being hidden.
Hopes remain that the ceasefire deal with Hamas — on the table for the past two months — can be finalised. On Saturday, senior officers from Egyptian intelligence, which has been working to broker a deal, were in Gaza to meet Hamas leaders in an attempt to overcome the remaining obstacles.
The chief one is the breakdown in reconciliation efforts between Hamas and the Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority, which insists on being the conduit for all financial assistance to Gaza.
Hamas is eager to go ahead with the ceasefire in return for significant changes to the closure on Gaza imposed by Israel and Egypt, but the Egyptians are anxious not to cut Mahmoud Abbas out of the picture entirely. The Palestinian President still controls one of the main sources of income to Gaza, including salaries for public employees there.
Hamas said on Sunday that the ceasefire talks had been suspended because of Mr Abbas’s position.
Meanwhile, the civilian situation in Gaza continues to deteriorate. A World Bank report this week noted that the local economy in Gaza had shrunk by six per cent in the first quarter of 2018, with half the population unemployed. Among young people, the rate was as high as 70 per cent.
The report’s authors concluded that international aid is insufficient to reverse the economic trends.
They called on Israel to “support a conducive environment for economic growth by lifting restrictions on trade and allowing the movement of goods and people, without which the economic situation in Gaza will never improve.”