Israel will in the near future lift some of the restrictions placed on the import of goods into the Gaza Strip. The decision was taken on Thursday by the country' s security cabinet, comprising senior government ministers.
The office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a brief statement to the media immediately after the meeting, which lasted for two days, but government spokespeople would not detail the measures to be taken.
However, local analysts suggest the relaxation is not a permanent solution for the Gaza siege. They believe that a final-status deal is not possible before Hamas and Fatah reach reconciliation, hence a single organization representing the Palestinians.
The relaxations have nothing to do with the pressure under which Israel has been placed following the May 31 incident on board a Turkish vessel, in which nine people lost their lives, according to Netanyahu. He maintains talks were already underway prior to the boarding of the Mavi Marmara by Israeli commandos.
The vessel was at the head of a flotilla bound for Gaza in a bid to break the Israeli blockade on the Palestinian coastal enclave.
Israel's prevention of the free flow of goods by land and sea began when the Palestinian Islamic resistance movement Hamas ousted Fatah from power in Gaza. Fatah is seen as being pro- Western and is leading the indirect peace talks with Israel. Its power base is in the other Palestinian territory, the West Bank.
The Israeli governmental statement says that three general moves were approved by the security cabinet. The method currently used to allow civilian commodities into Gaza will be changed to allow more goods to be transported into the Strip. Building materials for civilian projects may be brought in but under supervision. The current security measures will remain in place to prevent military materiel from entering Gaza.
"The cabinet will meet soon to decide on steps for implementing this policy," read the statement, which ended with a plea to the international community to secure the release of Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier captured by Hamas and held in Gaza for the last four years.
Any further details were likely to be passed on later on Thursday to the U.S. Middle East envoy George Mitchell who was holding talks with Netanyahu and Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak.
While no other particulars were made public, it is known that Netanyahu proposed to his ministers that from now on there be a list of goods forbidden from import to Gaza, rather than a list of permitted items.
Israel's decision to allow construction materials into Gaza under supervision is thought to have been reached in coordination with Tony Blair, the envoy of the Middle East peace Quartet. The Quartet comprises the United States, the European Union (EU), Russia and the United Nations (UN) and is the main sponsor of the current Palestinian-Israeli peace process.
Blair has reportedly tried to persuade Netanyahu to allow Palestinian and international observers to be permanently posted at the crossing points from Israel into Gaza, so that they can witness the supervisory process. Israel's concern about building materials is that they could be used to build weapons and underground bunkers for Hamas fighters. As a result, international organizations operating inside Gaza would likely have to give guarantees regarding the end use of the equipment.
Blair can take all the credit he likes but this was all about American pressure on Israel, the co-CEO of the Israel-Palestine Center for Research and Information, Gershon Baskin, told Xinhua on Thursday. This pressure predates the flotilla episode but it is clear that the international storm in the wake of that incident also played its part, he said.
"The people who ran the flotilla knew what they were doing. It was a provocation against the whole siege policy and it worked. It was a victory," said Baskin.
The amount of opening up is directly proportional to the amount of pressure placed on Israel by the international community, he added. That does not mean that sending more flotillas to Gaza's Mediterranean shoreline will be helpful though.
For some time in Israel there had been a growing feeling that the policy of making life worse for Gaza and Hamas in order to help Fatah was not really working, according to Jonathan Rynhold, a senior research associate at the Begin Sadat Center for Strategic Studies near Tel Aviv. However, the Egyptians and Palestinians in the West Bank under the auspices of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) wanted Israel to continue to keep Hamas in check, he added.
"What the flotilla did was to kill politically that line of thinking. It determined that Israel had to change the terms of the blockade. So the idea was there before but without the flotilla fiasco we wouldn't have seen the change so rapidly," said Rynhold.
Various experts have told Xinhua in recent weeks that part of the problem in dealing with Gaza is that there is too much focus on the micro, whether cement should be allowed in, how many observers should be positioned at the crossings and so on, rather than focusing on the macro, a permanent solution for Gaza.
Baskin shares that view and says that the opinions of Israel, Egypt, Fatah, Hamas and the Gazans themselves must all be taken into account.
Cairo has made it clear on numerous occasions that it does not want to be left with the Gaza problem on its doorstep. The Israelis too would rather be rid of Gaza, which is seen as a liability in the region as opposed to the West Bank, where the economy is booming and there appears to be a willingness to cooperate with Israel and the international community.
The problem for everyone in the West is that Hamas controls Gaza. The organization is deemed a terror organization by the U.S., the EU and Canada.
As a result, Rynhold does not see a lasting solution for Gaza being reached any time soon. He thinks that for the time being the parties need to think of ways to contain or "manage" the territory and Hamas.
"When people say 'solve' what they mean is that Hamas and Fatah should reach a settlement and then they should negotiate with Israel. I think that is very unlikely," he said.
That means Mitchell's mission to create a lasting peace deal with the formation of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza is unlikely to succeed at this stage.
Without a single Palestinian representative organization, reaching a final-status deal is virtually impossible, said Rynhold.
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