Opening the Gateways to Gaza

Israel is to ease restrictions on its two crossings into Gaza to allow greater movement of people and goods under terms of a ceasefire agreement that ended the 50-day conflict.

Erez which lies at Gaza's northern edge is a personnel crossing, while Kerem Shalom, which lies at the southernmost point of the Gaza-Israel border, is the only transit point for aid and goods coming from Israel.

Although Kerem Shalom was open for most of the conflict, which began on July 8 and ended with a ceasefire on August 26, it was predominantly to allow in aid and fuel deliveries, while Erez was only open for humanitarian emergencies.

It is still not clear to what extent Israel will ease restrictions at Erez, or how much construction material it will allow through Kerem Shalom to rebuild parts of the decimated strip.

The Rafah crossing, which lies on Gaza's southern border with Egypt, is the enclave's only gateway to the world that is not controlled by Israel, and is therefore not part of the truce agreement.

In the months before the crisis began, an average of 4,271 trucks per month were entering Gaza through Kerem Shalom, carrying aid, fuel and construction materials for international projects, Israeli rights watchdog Gisha says.

Under terms of a blockade first imposed in 2006 which was tightened a year later, Israel has virtually blocked the import of cement, steel and gravel into Gaza, on grounds they could be used for making rockets and building fortifications.

When the conflict began, Israel kept Kerem Shalom open, allowing a total of 5,562 trucks to cross into Gaza over the seven-week period, carrying humanitarian supplies and fuel, but no construction materials, defense ministry figures show.

Under terms of the truce which ended the fighting, Israel agreed to ease the restrictions to allow in materials for the construction of the battered enclave.

"Israel will allow entry of building material and other instruments that need to be used for the rehabilitation of Gaza," said Guy Inbar, spokesman for COGAT, the defense ministry body that coordinates with the Palestinians.

"Those building materials will be able to cross into Gaza only under a mechanism of supervising and control to make sure that those materials won't go to the hands of Hamas for terror activities," he said.

But Gisha says the stringent security checks currently in place would have to change in order to speed up the import of building materials, otherwise reconstruction would be impossible.

"Since December 2013 Israel has been allowing in construction material for international organizations, but it's been a narrow, time consuming and complicated process," Gisha co-founder Sari Bashi told AFP.

"If Israel continues that approval process, it will take 100 years to rebuild Gaza," she said, noting that the livelihoods of some 70,000 Gazans depend on work in the construction industry.

Before the crisis, there were, each month, around 6,200 exits of people from Gaza through Erez, Gisha says.

During the conflict, passage through Erez was only open to Palestinians for emergency medical evacuation, or for the crossing of journalists and aid workers, permitting a total of 4,178 exits from Gaza, according to the defense ministry.

It was not clear what percentage of those leaving via Erez were Palestinian.

So far, it remains unclear how the restrictions at Erez will be relaxed after the ceasefire.

Around a third of Gaza's 1.8 million inhabitants have relatives in the West Bank, Gisha says, but many have never received permission to leave to visit them.

"Israel has the right to conduct background checks, (but) the restrictions go far beyond that and they ban nearly everybody," Bashi said, indicating the rules only allowed people to move for "very narrow humanitarian" purposes.

The Rafah crossing with Egypt is Gaza's only gateway to the world that is not controlled by Israel. Since the regime change in Egypt in July 2013, Cairo has largely kept the border closed.

The status is not part of the Israeli-Palestinian cease-fire agreement, since it is under Egyptian sovereignty, a high-ranking Egyptian official told AFP.

Egypt and the Palestinians are negotiating a separate agreement to ease restrictions at Rafah.

During the war, Egypt eased the restrictions, allowing some 15,000 Palestinians to cross the border, mostly those wounded in the bombardment and people displaced by the fighting, he said.

A number of humanitarian convoys and trucks carrying 1,800 tons of medicine and food also entered Gaza from Egypt, he said.