Israel Eases Restrictions on Gaza Imports After Days of Relative Calm

JERUSALEM — Israel lifted restrictions on its main cargo crossing point with the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, ending the punitive measures after five weeks and moving to shore up a cease-fire with the Hamas-governed territory.

With Egypt’s help, Israel has strictly controlled the movement of people and goods in and out of the Gaza Strip for 11 years, since the militant group Hamas took control of the territory. It also has a naval blockade of Gaza that it says is necessary to prevent the smuggling of weapons.

Israel imposed the additional restrictions on cargo on July 9, after months of deadly protests and clashes along its border with Gaza. Hundreds of incendiary devices launched from Gaza on kites and balloons had charred large sections of Israeli farmland, and several rounds of cross-border fighting threatened to escalate into all-out conflict.

The restrictions at Gaza’s main cargo crossing banned the import of all goods except food, medicine and “humanitarian equipment,” as well as all exports. That meant there were some days this month that only about 100 trucks passed through the border crossing.

The Israeli military said on Wednesday that activity at the Kerem Shalom crossing had returned to normal, and that the permitted fishing zone off the Palestinian enclave had been expanded to nine nautical miles from three after a few days of relative calm along the border.

Israel’s hard-line defense minister, Avigdor Lieberman, conveyed a message to the residents of the impoverished and isolated Gaza Strip in a Facebook post on Wednesday.

“Peace and quiet are worth it, and violence is not,” he said. “The residents of Gaza have much to gain when the citizens of Israel enjoy peace and security, and much to lose when quiet is disturbed.”

The past four days have been the quietest on the Gaza border since March 30, Lieberman said in the Facebook post, referring to the start of the mass protests along the border fence. He ended with a warning: “If Hamas turns to violence again, we will respond immediately and in a much more severe manner than before.”

More than 150 Gaza Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire during that period, most of them unarmed. One Israeli soldier was killed last month by a Palestinian sniper along the border with Gaza.

Raed Fattouh, the Palestinian official in charge of the shipment of goods at Kerem Shalom, told reporters that Israel would allow 700 trucks to cross into Gaza on Wednesday with construction materials, fuel, food and other products, including some that had been banned for almost a year.

On Monday, six Israeli and Palestinian human rights organizations petitioned the High Court of Justice of Israel to demand the lifting of restrictions at the Kerem Shalom crossing, arguing that they had led to shortages of basic commodities, severely damaged industrial activity and threatened to worsen an already delicate humanitarian situation in the territory, where the unemployment rate is above 50 percent.

Egypt and the United Nations envoy in the region have been trying to broker a broader arrangement for a long-term truce that would allow significant investment in development projects in Gaza. Those talks are continuing, but they are bedeviled by the competing interests of Israel, Hamas and its rival, the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority in the West Bank.

Representatives of Hamas and other Palestinian factions traveled to Cairo on Tuesday to discuss a long-term cease-fire agreement with Israel and faltering reconciliation efforts between Hamas and Fatah.

One of the main goals of the border protests has been the complete lifting of the 11-year blockade of Gaza. Husam Badran, a Hamas leader, said in a statement on Tuesday that the so-called Great Return March protests, in which the demonstrators are also pressing claims to land in what is now Israel, would continue.