About 800 trucks with goods for Gaza residents are expected to enter the enclave on Wednesday via the only cargo crossing that was recently reopened by Israel in response to a maintained ceasefire on the border, Raed Fattouh, chairman of a Palestinian Authority-affiliated committee for the delivery of goods to the Gaza Strip, told Sputnik.
GAZA/TEL AVIV (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 15th August, 2018) About 800 trucks with goods for Gaza residents are expected to enter the enclave on Wednesday via the only cargo crossing that was recently reopened by Israel in response to a maintained ceasefire on the border, Raed Fattouh, chairman of a Palestinian Authority-affiliated committee for the delivery of goods to the Gaza Strip, told Sputnik.
In early July, the Israeli authorities closed the Kerem Shalom checkpoint, intended for the commercial imports and exports, in an attempt to put an end to disturbances and airborne arson attacks on the Gaza border. Also to this end, Israel then intensified its blockade on Gaza by imposing an embargo on all fuel deliveries to the area.
"The Israeli side reopened the Kerem Shalom check point in the morning ... It will operate in the same mode as it was before July 10. We expect about 800 trucks [to enter the enclave] today," Fattouh said.
In response to the calm on the border, which has been maintained since Saturday, Israel also expanded the designated fishing zone off the Gaza Strip to 10.3 miles.
Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman said, commenting on the decision to reopen the border crossing, that this was done in order to send a signal to Gaza residents that "calm is better than violence."
Since March a number of temporary ceasefire agreements between Israel and Hamas have been reached through Egyptian mediation.
Over 160 Palestinians have been killed in clashes with Israeli troops since the beginning of a mass Palestinian protest campaign called the Great March of Return. Israeli authorities have not ruled out holding a full-scale military operation in the enclave if rocket shelling and arson balloons attacks by Palestinians continued.
