Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman announced Tuesday that he has decided to partially reopen the Kerem Shalom cargo crossing between Gaza and Israel, starting at noon. In addition to shipments of food and medicine, petroleum fuels and natural gas deliveries will also be allowed into Gaza.
Lieberman said that operations at Kerem Shalom were still restricted because, despite a recent cease-fire, Hamas had not stopped sending incendiary balloons over the security fence into Israeli territory or ended the riots it organizes along the border fence.
Over the next few days, Lieberman will consider whether to order the full resumption of operations in the Kerem Shalom crossing, depending on the intensity of attacks by Hamas. The crossing will only resume full commercial activity if Hamas completely halts its arson terrorism campaign, which has laid waste to tens of thousands of acres of Israeli forest, farmland and nature reserves.
Meanwhile, Palestinian sources reported Tuesday that IDF aircraft fired warning shots at a group of Palestinians in the northern Gaza Strip.
The Palestinian report, which was not confirmed by the IDF, said that the shots were fired at a group of five young men who breached the border fence near the abandoned Karni crossing and threw Molotov cocktails.
There were no immediate reports of injuries.
On Monday, Lieberman met with the IDF's General Staff Forum to discuss the security situation in southern Israel and on the northern border.
"When it comes to Gaza, we must ask ourselves four basic questions: Is Israel interested in a war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip? The answer is no. Are we put off by the idea of a conflict in the Gaza Strip? The answer is also no. Are we willing to accept a reality of fires, [terror] kites and clashes along the [border] fence? No. And the last question: have we done everything to avoid a war in the Gaza Strip? The answer is yes," Lieberman said.
"Therefore, responsibility for everything that happens in Gaza from here on out falls on the Hamas leadership alone," the defense minister said.
Two fires broke out in Israeli communities adjacent to the Gaza border on Monday – one in the Dorot Forest in the northern Negev and the second between Kibbutz Karmia and Moshav Mavkiim. However, the Israel Fire and Rescue Services reported that there was no indication that Palestinian arson terrorism had caused the blazes.
