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Israel shuts Gaza crossings after rocket attack

Reuters - Wednesday, August 20

JERUSALEM - Israel temporarily closed its border crossings with the Gaza Strip on Wednesday in response to a rocket attack, including a key crossing slated to be reopened after being shut for months, an Israeli defence official said.

Defence ministry spokesman Shlom Dror said defence chief Ehud Barak ordered all commercial border crossings with the Gaza Strip closed after a rocket fired from the Hamas-controlled territory landed in southern Israel late on Tuesday.

Dror said the decision would affect a plan to reopen Kerem Shalom, a commercial crossing closed since April, when a Palestinian suicide bomber blew himself up in a car at the crossing.

Raed Fattouh, the Palestinian official who coordinates the delivery of supplies into the Gaza Strip, said he was informed by Israel that all commercial crossings would remain closed on Wednesday.

Dror did not say how long the crossings would remain shut, but said their reopening would require a "security assessment" by Israel.

An Israeli army spokesman said Tuesday's rocket landed in an open field near the Israel-Gaza frontier, causing no injuries or damage.

Israel and Hamas agreed on a ceasefire in June. It calls on both sides to stop cross-border violence and on Israel to ease a blockade on the Gaza Strip that was tightened after Hamas Islamists seized the territory more than a year ago.

The truce has largely held, although Gaza militants have occasionally fired rockets into Israel and the Jewish state has periodically closed its borders with the coastal enclave.

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