950820

Gazans return to

work as Israel

lifts clouser

EREZ (Gaza Strip): Thousands of Palestinians left self-ruled Gaza for work in Israel on Sunday as the Jewish state lifted a 10-day closure of the strip, a Palestinian official said.

Elsewhere in Gaza, a bomb went off near an Israeli patrol but no one was injured, the army said.

Israel lifted the closure at 4 a.m. (0100 GMT) two days after Palestinian police captured a militant from the Islamic Hamas group in Gaza suspected of planning a suicide bombing inside Israel.

Wael Nassar and another Hamas militant gave themselves up at the end of a three-hour standoff with police in Gaza City on Friday.

Israeli officials sealed off Gaza on August 10, a day before Israel and the PLO initialled a partial accord on expanding Palestinian self-rule in the West Bank, on information an attack was imminent.

Colonel Redwan Abu al-Qumsan, the PLO's Head of security at the Erez crossing, said only around 6,000 of the 16,000 Palestinians with permits to work in Israel left Gaza. The rest stayed home on the assumption they needed new permits to enter Israel.

Israel began renewing entry permits last week but has issued only a few thousand new magnetic cards needed to cross into the Jewish state.

But Israeli officials said on Sunday the old permits were still valid and Palestinians whose magnetic cards had not be renewed could still enter for work in Israel.-Reuter