Mortars, closures disrupt shaky Gaza Strip truce

By Nidal al-Mughrabi

GAZA (Reuters) - Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip fired two mortar shells into southern Israel on Friday in the latest challenge to a ceasefire deal and the enclave's Islamist Hamas rulers, who appealed to all factions to abide by the deal.

The shells landed in a farming community near the border with the Gaza Strip, causing no casualties, an Israeli police spokesman said.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the cross-border fire, the fourth such incident since the Egyptian-brokered ceasefire began on June 19.

Israel has kept border crossings used to bring humanitarian and commercial supplies into the Gaza Strip closed since Wednesday, after a cross-border rocket attack by the Islamic Jihad militant group.

Israel allowed fuel to reach the territory's sole power station on Friday.

Speaking in Gaza City hours after the two mortars were fired, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh urged "all parties to respect the national consensus" behind the ceasefire.

Hamas spokesman Mushir al-Masri lashed out at militants who are defying the truce. "It has become clear that some Palestinian parties do not want this calm deal to succeed and they do not want the siege to be lifted," Masri said.

"Those who fired the rockets did not aim them at the Zionist enemy but fired them to settle internal scores," he added, in an apparent reference to President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah faction.  Continued...