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Israel announced it was rolling out a series of goodwill gestures towards the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, expanding the enclave’s fishing zone to its furthest point in years and allowing thousands more workers from the Palestinian territory into Israel, despite nightly riots along the border in recent days.
It was confirmed that Gaza Strip’s fishing zone was expanded to 15 nautical miles – the furthest distance Israel has permitted since the Hamas terror group took control of the Strip in 2007. On Tuesday, Israel allowed dozens of truckloads of construction materials into the Gaza Strip through the Kerem Shalom crossing.
Bassam Ghabin, director of the Palestinian side of the Kerem Shalom cargo crossing, said that 30 truckloads of cement, 120 trucks of gravel and 15 trucks of steel entered Gaza. In addition, 5 million cubic metres (1.3 billion gallons) of water will be allowed into Gaza, it was confirmed. 5,000 more workers will also be permitted into Israel from Gaza – on top of the 2,000 already allowed, Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) said. The gestures came amid riots on the Gaza-Israel border.
On Tuesday, hundreds of Palestinians demonstrated on the Gaza-Israel border for a fourth straight night of riots. The rioters set tires alight and rolled them toward Israeli soldiers stationed along the frontier, and lobbed improvised explosives. It has been reported that the so-called “night confusion units” behind the riots do not officially tie themselves to Hamas, though their activities could not take place without the approval of the terror group that rules the enclave.
IDF chief Aviv Kohavi warned on Monday that Israel would not tolerate the border riots, stating: “Calm and security will allow an improvement in civil conditions, but rioting and terror will lead to a strong response or operation”.
