Israel reopens trade route

Israel closed Erez after last weeks’ rocket attack Jerusalem - Arabstoday Israel said it will reopen the Kerem Shalom commercial crossing into southern Gaza on Monday, six days after closing it after a rocket fired from the Palestinian enclave hit the Jewish state. "Due to a security assessment it has been decided that Kerem Shalom crossing will be opened tomorrow for transfer of goods," a statement from the Israeli Defence Ministry body that coordinates with the Palestinians said on Sunday. "This is the first time the crossing will be open since the last rocket attack on Ashkelon," a city in southern Israel. Israel had shut down operations at the commercial crossing into southern Gaza and also restricted access to Israel via the Erez crossing after a rocket from Gaza struck Israel on Tuesday. A Defence Ministry spokesman told AFP that Erez would also be resuming its normal activity on Monday. The attack marked the first time militants had fired a projectile across the border in more than three months following an Egyptian-brokered truce deal which ended eight days of deadly fighting in November. Gaza militants initially claimed they had fired the rocket as a response to the death of a Palestinian prisoner in an Israeli jail. The border remained tense over the weekend, with three Palestinians injured by Israeli gunfire, and shots from Gaza hitting an Israeli army vehicle. Four Palestinians have been killed by Israeli gunfire and over 100 wounded since the November 21 ceasefire between the Jewish state and Gaza's Hamas rulers, according to the latest report of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).