Senior Hamas official warns Gaza border violence could resume

Senior Hamas official Khalil al-Hayya warns there could be a resumption of violence on the border between the Gaza Strip and Israel in the near future.

“The period of the latest ceasefire with the occupation is approaching its end,” al-Hayya says. “The occupation insists on maintaining Gaza under siege, and we shall not accept that.”

Al-Hayya doesn’t specify which conditions of the past summer’s ceasefire Israel haven’t been fulfilled. But the Hamas terror group has often escalated tensions on Israel’s border in order to pressure Israel into mediating with Qatar to bring humanitarian aid into the embattled coastal enclave.

Gaza has been under a crippling 13-year blockade by both Israel and Egypt since 2007. Israel says that the blockade is necessary to protect its security from Hamas, the Strip’s de facto rulers. But the economic and humanitarian cost to ordinary Gazans has been enormous, with rampant power cuts and over 50% unemployment.

— Aaron Boxerman