Israel and the new Palestinian government headed by Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad opened formal high-level contacts yesterday, marking an end to Israel's 15-month-long boycott of the Palestinian Authority.
An Israeli Foreign Ministry statement said Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni told Fayyad that establishment of his emergency government, replacing one headed by Hamas, would allow "progress on various issues ... as well as advance the political process."
Livni's conversation with Fayyad was the first publicly disclosed contact between the two sides since Fayyad's government was sworn in over the weekend.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, the Fatah leader, disbanded a Hamas-led government last week after the Islamist group's violent takeover of the Gaza Strip.
Abbas then appointed Fayyad's emergency government, which has won pledges of financial support from major Western powers who had imposed a crippling economic embargo on the Palestinian Authority after Hamas came to power in March last year.
Israel boycotted the Hamas-led government because the militant group refused to recognize Israel, renounce violence and abide by interim peace deals.
Meanwhile, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak ordered the army yesterday to allow into Israel any of the hundreds of Gazans holed up at a border crossing who were in desperate need of medical treatment.
About 200 Gazans, petrified by the chaos in the coastal strip, have been camped out for six days in a tunnel reeking of trash, urine and sweat on the Palestinian side of the Erez crossing with Israel, pleading with Israeli officials to grant them safe passage to the West Bank.
A teenager with leukemia was on his way through shortly after, the military said. Israeli officials also allowed all foreign nationals in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip to into Israel.
Israel's Supreme Court also heard a petition yesterday by a human-rights group demanding that Israeli authorities offer immediate treatment to 26 critically ill Palestinians hospitalized in Gaza.
Meanwhile, Israeli aircraft fired missiles at two rocket launchers in northern Gaza in the first aerial attack since Hamas militants took over the coastal strip late last week. No injuries were reported.
Earlier, Israeli tanks entered southern Gaza and four people, including at least two militants, were killed in an exchange of fire, Palestinian hospital officials said.
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