Israel Reopens People, Goods Crossings to Gaza after Lull
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Israel ordered the country's goods and people border crossings with Gaza to be opened on Sunday, just four days after shuttering them.
"The decision comes after a decrease in the violent events in Gaza over the weekend and efforts Hamas made to restrain" demonstrators, a statement from Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman's office read, AFP reported.
On Wednesday, Lieberman had ordered the closure of the Kerem Shalom goods crossing and the Erez crossing for people, after a rocket from the Palestinian territory hit a home in southern occupied Palestine in a retaliatory attack.
Hamas disavowed the launch and said it was investigating the incident, as alarm over a potential broader conflict rose.
Tensions have been running high near the border fence since March 30, which marked the start of a series of protests dubbed “The Great March of Return.” Protesters have assembled along the fence every Friday ever-since, demanding the right of return for those driven out of their homeland at the hands of the Zionist regime.
The clashes in Gaza reached their peak on May 14, the eve of the 70th anniversary of Nakba Day, or the Day of Catastrophe, which coincided this year with Washington's relocation of the US embassy from Tel Aviv to occupied Jerusalem al-Quds.
More than 200 Palestinians have so far been killed and over 20,000 others wounded in the renewed Gaza clashes, according to the latest figures released by the Gaza Health Ministry.
Gaza has been under Israeli siege since June 2007, causing a decline in living standards as well as unprecedented unemployment and poverty. Israel has also launched several bloody military campaigns against the densely populated Strip, the last of which began in early July 2014 and ended in late August the same year, killing nearly 2,200 Palestinians and injuring over 11,100.