Israel reopens Gaza crossings (Extra)

Middle East News

Jul 8, 2008, 9:43 GMT

Tel Aviv/Gaza - Israel reopened its crossing points with the Gaza Strip Tuesday, a day after closing them in response to a mortar attack, a military spokesman said. Defence Minister Ehud Barak ordered the reopening of the Sufa, Nahal Oz, Karni and Erez crossings at midday, answering positively to a request by Egyptian Intelligence Chief Omar Suleiman. Israel had closed the crossings after militants had fired a mortar shell from the northern Gaza Strip at the Karni trucks crossing, east of Gaza City, in the early afternoon, in violation of a less than three-week old, fragile truce. Shots were also heard near the Nahal Oz fuel crossing, on Israel's border with southern Gaza, the military spokesman told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa. He said that since the Egyptian-brokered truce took effect on June 19, militants from Gaza had fired eight locally-produced al-Quds and Nasser rockets and four mortar shells at southern Israel. Israel has in response temporarily shut down its goods crossings into the Strip some five times. The shaky truce in Gaza is the result of months of difficult indirect negotiations between Israel and Hamas, the radical Islamic movement in de-facto control of the Strip. The agreement includes a mutual end of hostilities, with Israel committing to a gradual lifting of its suffocating blockade of the Strip in return for a complete end to the near-daily rocket and mortar attacks from Gaza of before the truce. As part of the deal, the parties are also stepping up indirect negotiations on a prisoners exchange, that would involve Israeli Corporal Gilad Shalit, who has been held in Gaza for more than two years after being captured in a Hamas-led cross-border raid on an Israeli military outpost bordering the Strip. Hamas is demanding the release of hundreds of Palestinian militants from Israeli prisons in exchange for Shalit. A Hamas delegation was heading for Cairo on Tuesday to hear from Egypt on Israel's latest position in the negotiations, said Mahmoud al-Zahar, a Hamas leader who is joining the delegation. The delegation also includes Hamas de-facto Interior Minister Said Siam and Hamas official Jamal Abu Hashem. Hamas has accused Israel of violating the truce article, calling on it to reopen its commercial crossings with Gaza. Israel counters that it has committed to opening the crossings in return for an end to attacks.

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