Israel decided to shut borders with Gaza

Israel has shut border crossings into Gaza in response to Palestinian protests against US President Donald Trump’s decision last week to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. The closure was also prompted by rocket fired from Gaza against Israel.

An Israeli military spokesman said: “Hamas has lost a lot of its property and assets due to repeated Israeli strikes and it knows that it will pay the price should it continue to launch rockets.” Israeli residents living near Gaza have called on authorities to respond with force to the Hamas shelling, but the military and intelligence have refused to wage a new war on the coastal strip at the moment.

They therefore resorted to imposing economic measures against the Palestinians by closing the Karam Abou Saelm and Beit Hanoun crossings “until the rocket fire ceases.” This has not however deterred Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman from threatening to wage a fierce war against Gaza.

He said during a field visit in southern Israel that the escalation in Gaza was not linked to Israel, but to disputes between the various Palestinian factions. The army has been ordered to stay on alert to confront any development or launch a military offensive in the area, said Lieberman.

He hoped that Gazans would exert enough pressure on their leaderships to improve the economic situation in the coastal strip and not dig tunnels and manufacture rockets to fire at Israel. “We know what should be done, how to do it and when to do it,” he stressed.

Around 15 rockets have been fired into southern Israel since Trump’s announcement. None of the projectiles has caused serious injury or damage. The attacks have drawn Israeli air strikes that have killed two Hamas gunmen. Two other Palestinians have been killed in confrontations with Israeli troops during stone-throwing protests along the border.

Israeli cabinet minister Tzachi Hanegbi said on Israel Radio that while Hamas, which last fought a war with Israel in 2014, was not responsible for the rocket fire, it needed to rein in militants from “breakaway groups” or it would “find itself in a situation where it has to contend” with the Israeli military.

In Istanbul on Wednesday, a summit of more than 50 Muslim countries condemned Trump’s move and urged the world to respond by recognizing East Jerusalem, captured by Israel along with the West Bank in a 1967 war, as the capital of Palestine. Palestinians want East Jerusalem for the capital of a future state they seek in Israeli-occupied territory.

Trump’s declaration has been applauded by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a recognition of political reality and Jews’ biblical links to Jerusalem, a city that is also holy to Muslims and Christians.

Nazareth, the Israeli Arab city where Jesus is thought to have been raised, has canceled some Christmas celebrations in protest at Trump’s move, officials there said.

There was no word from Bethlehem, the Palestinian West Bank town that is Jesus’s traditional birthplace, whether it was also weighing a cutback on its celebrations at a crucial time of year for the its tourist trade.