Israel-Gaza border clash further threatens truce

A 5-month-old truce along Israel’s border with the Gaza Strip came under new strain Wednesday after an armed clash there, the second in just over a week, left four Palestinian gunmen dead.

The fighting raised the possibility that the truce will break down or will not be renewed when it expires next month, bringing a new round of heavy fighting in the region as the United States and Israel change administrations.

Israel branded Gaza a “hostile territory” last year after the militant Islamic group Hamas took control of the coastal enclave. Israel tightened a blockade of Gaza but eased it in June after the Egyptian-brokered truce took hold.

The truce largely held, until this month. On Nov. 4, Israeli forces making their first incursion into Gaza since June destroyed a border tunnel they believed militants had planned to use to capture Israeli soldiers. Six Palestinian militants were killed in the fighting that day.

There were conflicting reports about who started Wednesday’s clash.

A statement by the Israeli military said its forces spotted a group of gunmen trying to plant an explosive device near the border fence. It said four of the gunmen were hit in the ensuing exchange of fire and an Israeli soldier was lightly wounded.

Hamas said the fighting started when its border sentries spotted Israeli forces crossing into Gaza and fired at them. It said four Hamas gunmen were killed by an Israeli missile, one of two fired from the air.

Witnesses said much of the fighting, which lasted about three hours, took place a few hundred yards inside Gaza on the outskirts of a farming village near the city of Khan Yunis.

Hamas fired eight mortar rounds into Israel during and after the fighting, the Israeli army said, and a Hamas spokesman warned of further violence.

“We will not stand still,” said the spokesman, Ayman Taha. “There will be a painful response against the Zionist enemy.”

Taha said all factions of Hamas had been summoned to a meeting to review the cease-fire accord in light of what he called “continuous Israeli aggression.”

As recently as last week, Israeli and Hamas officials had expressed an interest in extending the truce. But Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak warned Tuesday that the calm might not last

A new round of fighting would affect the tenor of the election campaign for a successor to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. The February vote is a contest between Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, with Olmert’s centrist Kadima party, and the more hawkish Benjamin Netanyahu, leader of the right-wing opposition Likud Party.

An end to the truce would also bring new hardship to Gaza’s 1.5 million people, who already face severe restriction of their movement in and out of the territory across Israel’s and Egypt’s borders.

After the clash last week, Israel shut down the commercial crossings where basic goods pass into Gaza, allowing in only a limited amount of fuel Tuesday.

On Wednesday the United Nations Relief and Works Agency said it would be forced to suspend food distribution to 750,000 people in Gaza today unless wheat and other essential commodities were allowed in.

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boudreaux@latimes.com