Israel Partially Reopens Gaza’s Commercial Crossing

Trucks carrying fuel for the Gaza Strip enter Rafah through the Kerem Shalom crossing between Israel and the southern Gaza Strip on March 16, 2014. (File Photo: AFP Photo)
Trucks carrying fuel for the Gaza Strip enter Rafah through the Kerem Shalom crossing between Israel and the southern Gaza Strip on March 16, 2014. (File Photo: AFP Photo)
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Israel Partially Reopens Gaza’s Commercial Crossing

Trucks carrying fuel for the Gaza Strip enter Rafah through the Kerem Shalom crossing between Israel and the southern Gaza Strip on March 16, 2014. (File Photo: AFP Photo)
Trucks carrying fuel for the Gaza Strip enter Rafah through the Kerem Shalom crossing between Israel and the southern Gaza Strip on March 16, 2014. (File Photo: AFP Photo)

Israel’s Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman announced that Kerem Shalom Gaza's only commercial crossing will reopen following a decrease in incendiary balloons flown from Gaza Strip.

Lieberman’s office issued a statement announcing that in addition to food and medicine, fuel and gas will be allowed into Gaza Strip for the first time in a week.

"Gaza's residents need to understand that as long there are incendiary balloons and fires as on our side, life on their side will not return to a normal routine,” noted Lieberman adding that the crossing could return to full activity soon conditioned on the full cessation of fire-balloon launches and friction on the fence.

On July 9, Israel partially closed Kerem Shalom crossing in response to the incendiary kites. A week later, it imposed a complete shutdown of the crossing and banned gas and fuel from entering into the Strip, as a punishment for the continued phenomenon of incendiary kite.

The closure of the crossing was accompanied by other decisions, such as reducing the fishing area from 9 to 3 miles, before Hamas stopped flaming kites aircraft after a second deal was established between Gaza and Israel last Sunday.

Israel confirmed that Hamas had agreed to include balloons and kites as part of the deal. Hamas did not comment on the matter.

In fact, the fire kites stopped for several days before activists sent some of them on Monday and Tuesday.

Israel says the incendiary kites burned about 28,000 dunums of agricultural land, a figure that could not be ascertained, or to what extent the fires actually caused damage.

The decision to open the Kerem Shalom crossing came at a time when Palestinian officials said the Strip was about to collapse given that the economic crisis inside Gaza was exacerbating, while important sectors in Gaza have warned that the extended closure of the crossing would mean the cessation of its services.

Gaza's Health Ministry warned that the local health sector in the Strip stands on the verge of a "severe crisis" due to a chronic lack of fuel for emergency generators.

"What remains of a fuel grant will only meet our electricity needs until the first or second week of next month," said Ashraf Abu-Mahadi, the head of the ministry's international cooperation department.

Hospitals in Gaza need at least 450,000 liters of fuel to continue operating each month, according to Abu-Mahadi. He explained that emergency generators were needed to cope with frequent power outages, caused by Israel's ongoing blockade, that can sometimes last for up to 16 hours at a stretch.

"This means Gaza's ongoing health crisis will only worsen, further disrupting basic health services," he warned.

Gaza's power company announced on Monday a further reduction in the Strip’s electricity supply after its sole power station stopped functioning. As a result, Gazans will lack power for 18 hours a day instead of 16.

Meanwhile, a power line used to deliver electricity from Israel has been cut off for about a week.

"We are trying to supply electricity to the residents of Gaza at the minimal extent of four hours a day, but this is also doubtful," Mohammed Thabet, spokesman for Gaza's Electricity Distribution Company said. Gaza residents will experience power blackouts for more than the 16 hours a day that has been the norm, added the company.

Gaza's energy authority did not explain why the power station was shut, a source told Haaretz that a lack of diesel fuel caused the closure. According to the authority's figures, Gaza requires 600 megawatts of electricity a day, but the power station, when it functions, provides only 120. Israel provides about another 120 megawatts, while Egypt supplies another 20.

Palestinian Authority and Hamas are in dispute over the administration of the Strip, exacerbating the electricity crisis. Israel, as well as the United States and the United Nations, are considering ideas on establishing and building a power plant in Gaza.



US Pulls Out of Two More Bases in Syria, Worrying Kurdish Forces

SDF forces in Syria. (AFP file)
SDF forces in Syria. (AFP file)
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US Pulls Out of Two More Bases in Syria, Worrying Kurdish Forces

SDF forces in Syria. (AFP file)
SDF forces in Syria. (AFP file)

US forces have pulled out of two more bases in northeastern Syria, visiting Reuters reporters found, accelerating a troop drawdown that the commander of US-backed Syrian Kurdish forces said was allowing a resurgence of ISIS.

Reuters reporters who visited the two bases in the past week found them mostly deserted, both guarded by small contingents of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) - the Kurdish-led military group that Washington has backed in the fight against ISIS for a decade.

Cameras used on bases occupied by the US-led military coalition had been taken down, and razor wire on the outer perimeters had begun to sag.

A Kurdish politician who lives on one base said there were no longer US troops there. SDF guards at the second base said troops had left recently but declined to say when. The Pentagon declined to comment.

It is the first confirmation on the ground by reporters that the US has withdrawn from Al-Wazir and Tel Baydar bases in Hasaka province. It brings to at least four the number of bases in Syria US troops have left since President Donald Trump took office.

Trump’s administration said this month it will scale down its military presence in Syria to one base from eight in parts of northeastern Syria that the SDF controls. The New York Times reported in April that troops might be reduced from 2,000 to 500 in the drawdown.

The SDF did not respond to questions about the current number of troops and open US bases in northeastern Syria.

But SDF commander Mazloum Abdi, who spoke to Reuters at another US base, Al Shadadi, said the presence of a few hundred troops on one base would be "not enough" to contain the threat of ISIS.

"The threat of ISIS has significantly increased recently. But this is the US military’s plan. We’ve known about it for a long time ... and we’re working with them to make sure there are no gaps and we can maintain pressure on ISIS," he said.

Abdi spoke to Reuters on Friday, hours after Israel launched its air war on Iran. He declined to comment on how the new Israel-Iran war would affect Syria, saying simply that he hoped it would not spill over there and that he felt safe on a US base.

Hours after the interview, three Iranian-made missiles targeted the Al Shadadi base and were shot down by US defense systems, two SDF security sources said.

ISIS ACTIVE IN SYRIAN CITIES

ISIS ruled vast swathes of Iraq and Syria from 2014 to 2017 during Syria’s civil war, imposing a vision of religious rule under which it beheaded locals in city squares, sex-trafficked members of the Yazidi minority and executed foreign journalists and aid workers.

The group, from its strongholds in Raqqa in Syria and Mosul in Iraq, also launched deadly attacks in European and Middle Eastern countries.

A US-led military Coalition of more than 80 countries waged a yearslong campaign to defeat the group and end its territorial control, supporting Iraqi forces and the SDF.

But ISIS has been reinvigorated since the ouster of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad in December at the hands of separate opposition factions.

Abdi said ISIS cells had become active in several Syrian cities, including Damascus, and that a group of foreign extremists who once battled the Syrian regime had joined its ranks. He did not elaborate.

He said ISIS had seized weapons and ammunition from Syrian regime depots in the chaos after Assad's fall.

Several Kurdish officials told Reuters that ISIS had already begun moving more openly around US bases which had recently been shuttered, including near the cities of Deir Ezzor and Raqqa, once strongholds for the extremist group.

In areas the SDF controls east of the Euphrates River, ISIS has waged a series of attacks and killed at least 10 SDF fighters and security forces, Abdi said. Attacks included a roadside bomb targeting a convoy of oil tankers on a road near the US base where he gave the interview.