Will truce between Hamas, Israel last until election day?
Egyptian cease-fire efforts seem to be advancing since Hamas deployed members to prevent Palestinian protesters from clashing with Israeli forces, and Israel opened two crossings and loosened fishing restrictions off the coast.
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — A truce seems to have taken a tentative hold between Hamas and Israel, at least as of April 1. Israel has reopened the Kerem Shalom crossing for commercial goods and the Erez crossing for pedestrian traffic with the Gaza Strip, and allowed Palestinians to fish off the coast of the besieged territory.
On March 25, Israel had closed these crossings and banned fishing off Gaza’s coast in response to the injury of seven Israelis north of Tel Aviv by a rocket launched from the Gaza Strip earlier that day.
The recent calm came March 31, just hours after Israeli artillery shelled two military positions of Hamas in the center of the Gaza Strip, in response to the launch of five rockets from Gaza that landed in open areas in the vicinity of the towns adjacent to the Strip. Israeli military sources accused the Palestinian Islamic Jihad faction of being behind this attack.
A day earlier, on March 30, the Israeli army killed four Palestinian protesters in the rallies on the Gaza border marking the anniversary of the Great Return March and popular protests to break Israel's siege on the Strip.
