Israel Lifts Four-Week Ban On Foreign Journalists Going To Gaza

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — Israel on Thursday lifted a four-week ban on international journalists entering Gaza and temporarily eased a blockade on shipments of goods to the coastal strip.

Israeli military spokesman Peter Lerner said an entry ban on international aid workers was also lifted. The announcement followed weeks of pressure from foreign governments and the leaders of major news organizations urging Israel to reopen Gaza to the media.

The Foreign Press Association in Israel had condemned the ban as a violation of press freedoms.

Crossings between Israel and the Gaza Strip had been closed for more than four weeks since a shaky truce between Israel and Gaza's violent Hamas rulers began to unravel in a series of cross-border rocket attacks from Gaza and Israeli raids into the territory.

For the fifth time since the closure began, Israeli authorities on Thursday temporarily opened the crossings to goods traffic. They allowed in 40 truckloads of medicines and essential foodstuffs and permitted 400,000 liters (105,700 gallons) of diesel fuel for the Gaza power plant to be pumped through a trans-border pipeline, Palestinian trade ministry official Raed Fattouh said.

The blockade has created a cash crisis in Gaza banks, which closed for the day to count their dwindling stocks of bills. A monetary official said there was not enough cash to pay the wages of 77,000 civil servants in time for the four-day Eid al-Adha holiday, the holiest festival of the Muslim calendar, which begins Monday.

Raed Abu Shehadeh, head of the banking department at the West Bank-based Palestinian Monetary Authority, said it had asked Israel to let it ship 140 million shekels ($35 million) to Gaza but had not received an answer.

Lerner said the Palestinian request was "under discussion."

Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad heads a moderate, Western-backed government based in the West Bank. It continues to pay the salaries of Gaza civil servants and members of the security forces who remained loyal to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas after its bitter rival Hamas ousted Abbas' troops from Gaza in 2007.

Those incomes have been key to the survival of Gaza's battered economy.

Comments

[soundfury]

Let's be honest here. The UN High Commissioner for human rights has advised Isr@_eli at least twice in the past few months that they are flagrantly vi-olating the Pale-stinians human rights. This article fails to mention that the Isr@_elis cut of the electricity and water supply, medecine and food from entering P@_lestinian territory. The previous HIgh Commissioner Arbour had denounced their human rights ab_uses repeatedly for years. What is going on here? Eth-nic Cle-ansing pure and simple. When you consider the millions of displaced refugees and the human rights abu-ses and the collateral damage which includes children over the years, this has only one name and that is : eth-nic cleansing and it's taking place in full view and with the approval of George W. Bush. This is outrageous and no other "civilized" country in the world would be allowed to get away with this!

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=28983&Cr=palestin&Cr1=&Kw1=Gaza&Kw2=Human+Rights+&Kw3=

[11907281]

The meek shall inherit the earth.