Israel agrees to ease Gaza blockade

Israel’s security cabinet has approved a plan to ease the blockade on the Gaza Strip but insists that security checks will continue. Few details of what goods will be allowed in were made available after the decision Thursday morning.

Reuters

The plan will “liberalise the system by which civilian goods enter Gaza [and] expand the inflow of materials for civilian projects that are under international supervision," a government statement said.

But it also stressed that Israel will "continue existing security procedures to prevent the inflow of weapons and war materiel".

The move is a response to international pressure following the deadly raid on a flotilla trying to approach Gaza by sea. But Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has declared that the naval blockade will continue to prevent Gaza “turning into an Iranian port”.

Hamas, the Islamist movement which controls the area, dismissed the decision as an attempt to dodge international pressure after the flotilla incident.

The plan is reportedly based on understandings that Netanyahu has reached with former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, representing the Middle East Quartet of big powers.

The international proposal was to move from a list of items allowed to enter the territory to a list of banned items.

A proposal to station EU and Palestinian Authority inspectors at the border does not appear in the government plan.

Currently thousands of products, including ginger and toilet paper, are listed by Israel as security risks.

On Wednesday, Israel allowed eight trucks loaded with kitchen equipment to enter Gaza for the first time since 2006.

Blair told the Haaretz newspaper earlier this week that a new arrangement should “allow us to keep weapons and weapon materials out of Gaza, but on the other hand to help the Palestinian population there”.

At present much of Gaza’s needs are supplied by smuggling through tunnels from Egypt. They are regularly bombed by Israel.

The blockade was imposed in 2006 after the kidnapping of an Israeli soldier by a Gaza-based armed group and tightened a year later when Hamas took over.