Israel closes Palestinians crossing with Gaza after border violence

Israel closed its only crossing for people with the Gaza Strip, the latest tightening of its blockade on the Palestinian enclave despite truce efforts and the move prevents Palestinians from travelling via the crossing for this week’s Muslim holiday of Eidul Azha but Israeli officials did not say how long the closure would last.

Israeli Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman said the closure of the Erez crossing was due to “violent incidents on the border last Friday” but he deliberately forgot that Israel is an occupier of Palestine and Palestinians are struggling to liberate their homeland from foreign occupying force.
The Palestinian Authority civilian affairs office in the Gaza Strip also confirmed the closure except for medical cases and Palestinians seeking to cross back into the enclave.
Border protests and clashes on Friday saw two Palestinians martyred by Israeli gunfire. Israel’s army said firebombs and improvised explosive devices were also hurled at the border fence, while a number of Palestinians briefly crossed into the territory that they calls Israel. No Israelis were reported wounded.
Israel has enforced an air, land and sea blockade on the Gaza Strip for more than a decade, but grants permission to a limited number of Palestinians of occupied Palestine to cross for various reasons.
Israel had just last week reopened its only goods crossing with Gaza after closing it to most deliveries for more than a month over border tensions.
Gaza’s only other border is with Egypt but the Rafah crossing with the enclave had largely been kept closed in recent years. Cairo opened it in mid-May and it has mostly remained so since.
UN officials and Egypt have been seeking to secure a long-term truce between Hamas and Israel to allow for humanitarian issues in the impoverished enclave of two million people to be addressed.