Israel reopened border crossings with the Gaza Strip on Sunday as a fragile calm held on the border a week after a deadly escalation that nearly brought the sides to the brink of an all-out war.
A statement from the Defense Ministry said that both the Erez pedestrian crossing and Kerem Shalom goods crossing were reopened and operating.
Both crossings were shuttered at the start of the recent conflagration after a barrage of hundreds of rockets were fired into southern Israel.
Israel re-opens Gaza crossings as fragile calm on border holds https://t.co/JLGbbd04O6 pic.twitter.com/rZ8MAbbZWA
— i24NEWS English (@i24NEWS_EN) May 12, 2019
Four Israeli civilians and 25 Palestinians, including at least nine terrorists, were killed in the two-day conflagration, which ended on Monday in a tentative truce.
While Israel has not officially acknowledged the Egyptian-brokered ceasefire, it agreed on Friday to expand the permitted fishing zone off Gaza's coastline.
Both sides remained on high alert over the weekend as weekly border protests resumed on the first Friday of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. One Palestinian was killed in clashes with Israeli forces as thousands of Palestinians amassed in the area.
Palestinian militant factions have threatened to resume fighting if protesters are shot on the border or if the ceasefire deal is not implemented, while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has warned repeatedly that the campaign in Gaza has not ended.
This article was originally published by i24NEWS. Read more at https://www.i24news.tv/en.
