Israel will close the Erez border crossing after several rocket attacks from the Gaza Strip

Israel announced on Saturday that it is closing the Erez crossing with Gaza since Sunday in response to the launching of several rockets this week from the strip onto Israeli soil, three last night.

“The reopening of the crossing will be decided on the basis of the assessment of the security situation,” a spokesman for COGAT, the Israeli military force that manages civil affairs in the occupied Palestinian territories, said in a statement.

In this way, the Erez crossing will be closed indefinitely to Palestinian traders and workers who had permits to enter Israel, a number that has increased in recent months as one of the confidence-building measures between Israeli and Palestinian authorities.

In the midst of a new peak of tension and after further altercations on the Esplanade of Mosques, Palestinian militias in Gaza fired two rockets on Thursday night - one fell into the strip and another into an uninhabited space near the separation fence - and a third this morning, attacks to which Israel did not respond with targeted shelling.

This is the fourth rocket attack in a week, after one failed on Thursday, another hit near a house in the Israeli town of Sderot on Wednesday, and another was shot down by the Iron Dome anti-missile system on Monday.

None of the Gaza militias have claimed responsibility for these attacks, attributed by the media to Islamic Jihad, although the Israeli authorities hold Hamas, which de facto governs the enclave since 2007, responsible for any attack from the strip.

As a result, the Army has responded to all but the most recent attacks by shelling Hamas targets, including a building where they manufactured weapons.

In Jerusalem this Friday, clashes between Palestinians and Israeli police were repeated on the Esplanade of Mosques, on the third Friday of Ramadan prayer, after Hamas called on Palestinians on the eve to “mobilize” to defend Al Aqsa, a mosque seen as a Palestinian national symbol.

Dozens of masked Palestinians carrying Hamas flags rioted inside that mosque at the first prayer of 4 am and at noon, and threw stones at the officers, who responded with rubber bullets and tear gas.

The two rounds of clashes in that holy place for Muslims and Jews left more than fifty Palestinians injured on a day in which more than 150,000 faithful attended the Friday prayer in Ramadan.

This type of clashes between Palestinians and Israeli police has been repeated almost daily since last Friday, when there were more than 150 Palestinian injuries and 3 officers; in addition to some 400 detainees, in a week that coincided the celebrations of Muslim Ramadan and the Passover or Jewish Passover.

The current surge in tension began a month ago with a series of attacks on Israeli territory, which left 14 victims and were followed by extensive army raids in the occupied West Bank, where more than twenty Palestinians have since died; before the violence reached Jerusalem a week ago.

(With information from EFE)

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