More mortar fire after Israel

Gaza militants fired a mortar on Tuesday just hours after Israel reopened crossing points into the Hamas-ruled territory that it closed in response to an earlier violation of a three-week-old truce. The Israeli military said a mortar round struck an uninhabited area of southern Israel without causing casualties or damage. Israel has responded to previous attacks by Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip by sealing the border, but it gave no immediate indication that it planned to do so again following the latest incident. ‘I am not aware of any decision to close the crossing points,’ military spokesman Peter Lerner said. Israel closed crossings into Gaza on Tuesday morning after a mortar round was fired at southern Israel the previous day, but reopened them several hours later. ‘Following a special request by the Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman, the defence minister, Ehud Barak, ordered the reopening of the crossings at around noon (0900 GMT),’ Barak’s office said. Egypt played a key role in mediating the Gaza truce between Israel and the Islamist movement Hamas, which went into effect on June 19. Suleiman, Egypt’s pointman for Palestinian affairs, was due to hold talks on the fragile truce with a Hamas delegation that travelled to Cairo on Tuesday.