JERUSALEM — Israel on Monday announced a major change in the way it will manage the country’s controversial blockade of the Gaza Strip, a move Israeli officials hope will ease tensions with the Obama administration on the eve of a visit to Washington by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The Israelis will no longer block goods from entry to Gaza based on a limited list of permitted items that often changed. Instead, the Israelis published a list of prohibited items; everything else is permitted.
That should lead to an increase in consumer goods available to Gaza’s 1.5 million residents.
Tony Blair, the former British prime minister who is the Mideast envoy for the so-called quartet of nations monitoring peace efforts, called the change “significant.” There was no immediate comment from the White House.
Israel has been under harsh international pressure to ease the blockade, which it imposed in 2007 after the radical group Hamas seized control of Gaza. That pressure increased in May, when Israeli commandos killed nine civilians aboard a Turkish vessel that was trying to run Israel’s naval blockade.
The new list still prohibits much of what Gazans say they need most — construction materials to rebuild the territory. Among the prohibited items announced Monday were insulation, many types of cement, steel cables of any thickness and construction forms. Also prohibited were fertilizers and all manner of seacraft.
