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ISRAEL-PALESTINIANS-CONFLICT
Israel strikes Gaza, cancels easing of restrictions
JERUSALEM, Feb 16, 2020 (BSS/AFP) – The Israeli air force attacked Hamas
positions in the Gaza Strip on Saturday in retaliation to rocket fire from
the Palestinian enclave into Israel, a military statement said.
The exchange of fire between both sides has escalated since last month
after US President Donald Trump unveiled his Middle East peace plan, angrily
rejected by the Palestinians as a capitulation to Israeli objectives.
“Fighter planes and helicopters have targeted positions of the terrorist
organisation Hamas in central Gaza Strip,” including a military post, said
the Israeli military, which earlier reported two projectiles had been fired
into the Jewish state from the Gaza Strip.
Following the rocket fire, Israel announced it would cancel a slight
easing of the blockade on the Gaza Strip.
“The extension of the fishing zone, the restoration of 500 commercial
permits and the delivery of cement have been cancelled,” because of the
rocket fire, COGAT, the Israel defence ministry unit that oversees civilian
activities in the Palestinian territories, said in a statement.
Hamas and Israel have fought three wars since 2008 but over the past year,
the Islamists had gradually shaped an informal truce with Israel, under which
the Jewish state has eased its crippling blockade of Gaza.
Israel justifies the blockade by the need to contain the Islamist movement
Hamas — designated a terrorist organisation by much of the West — which has
controlled the enclave since 2007.
Critics say it is collective punishment of two million people and feeds
extremism.
Palestinians in Gaza have launched rockets, mortar shells and balloons
rigged with explosives at southern Israel on a near-daily basis since Trump’s
plan was unveiled.
BSS/AFP/MSY/1023 hrs