Life returning to normal after Gaza truce

GAZA/JERUSALEM — Life on both sides of the Gaza Strip border seemed to be returning to normal on Sunday after an Egyptian-mediated cease-fire halted five days of fighting between Israel and Islamic Jihad.

The Israeli Defense Ministry announced in a statement the reopening of the crossing of Kerem Shalom for cargo trucks and the Erez crossing, the only pedestrian passage between Gaza and Israel, after a six-day closure.

Shops and public offices reopened and crowds returned to streets that had been deserted for days.

Both sides confirmed the halt to hostilities but gave different interpretations of the conditions.

The truce, however, was put to the test when sirens went off in southern Israel shortly after taking effect.

Israeli soldiers killed a Palestinian man on Monday in the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian health ministry said, with the army saying it returned fire after being shot at. "Saleh Mohamed Sabra, 22, was killed by live bullets during an Israeli attack in Nablus," the ministry said, adding that another Palestinian was wounded by gunfire.

The Israeli military said suspects hurled rocks and explosives and fired at its forces in Nablus, a flashpoint city where there have been regular raids and clashes. The soldiers shot at the suspects and "a hit was identified", the military said.

It added that the forces were in Nablus to prepare for the possible demolition of the home of a Palestinian suspected of killing two brothers from a Jewish settlement on Feb 26.

Meanwhile, for the first time, the United Nations will officially commemorate the flight of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from what is now Israel on the 75th anniversary of their exodus — an action stemming from the UN's partition of British-ruled Palestine into separate Jewish and Arab states, The Associated Press reported.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is headlining Monday's UN commemoration of what Palestinians call the Nakba or "catastrophe".

Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian UN ambassador, called the UN observance "historic" and significant because the General Assembly played a key role in the partition of Palestine.

"It's acknowledging the responsibility of the UN of not being able to resolve this catastrophe for the Palestinian people for 75 years," Mansour told a group of UN reporters recently.

He said the catastrophe for "the Palestinian people is still ongoing".The Palestinians still don't have an independent state, and they don't have the right to return to their homes as called for in a General Assembly resolution adopted in 1948.

On Sunday, the Iranian Foreign Ministry stressed a diplomatic solution to Palestine's "old crisis".The ministry underlined the issues in a statement to mark the occasion of Nakba Day.

The statement highlighted the necessity to adopt a "diplomatic solution" to enable the displaced Palestinian people to return to their homeland and hold a referendum to decide about its political system.

Agencies - Xinhua