Tel Aviv: The Israeli occupation has agreed to further ease some restrictions on the entry of goods into the Gaza Strip, a move that will allow 20 daily truckloads of construction materials into Gaza for use in the private sector for the first time since 2007, Israel Radio reported.
The transports of construction materials will start from next week, it said.
Israel also authorized the entry of 40 new buses and 20 new trucks for use inside the coastal territory, it said.
An occupation military spokesman for the body in charge of coordinating the movement of goods into Gaza was not immediately available for comment.
The decision to allow in construction material appears to be part of the informal, Egyptian-brokered ceasefire agreement between Hamas and Israel that ended eight days of intense fighting in November.
Israel first imposed its blockade on Gaza in 2006, following rocket and mortar attacks from the strip and the abduction of a soldier.
It tightened the closure to a near-total one in 2007, when it declared Gaza an “enemy entity” after the Islamist Hamas movement seized sole control of the territory.
Only basic goods were allowed in but that changed in 2010, when Israel eased the near-total blockade as a result of a storm of international criticism over its killing of activists on a Turkish passenger ship caring pro-Palestinian campaigners headed for Gaza.
Since June 2010, all goods except those called “dual-use items” are allowed unlimited entry. Dual-use items are things which Israel alleges can be used by fighters to dig tunnels and bunkers or manufacture rockets, including construction materials. Only a limited amount of materials for building projects needed by international organizations had been allowed in.
