Special report: Palestine-Israel Relations

    GAZA, July 23 (Xinhua) -- Israel has allowed limited shipments of daily necessities into the Gaza Strip, easing the blockade over one month after a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas went into effect, a Hamas official said on Wednesday.

    Hatem Owaida, an aide to the economic minister of Hamas unity government based in Gaza, said 87 trucks, including seven truckloads of cement, nine truckloads of shoes and clothes and eight truckloads of juice and cakes, have passed into Gaza through Sufa commercial crossing in southeast Gaza Strip.

    These products were banned from entering Gaza since Israel sealed off the coastal enclave in June last year after Hamas took control of the territory.

    The rest trucks carried "various food products" that used to be allowed into the impoverished strip before the ceasefire took place on June 19, Owaida said.

    Meanwhile, Israel allowed 148 truckloads of gravel stones to enter Gaza through the main commercial crossing point at Karni and increased fuel deliveries, Owaida said.

    The Egypt-brokered ceasefire has succeeded in restoring relative calmness but critics say Israel did not properly open the commercial crossings and still imposes restrictions on the sorts and quantities of the basic needs, especially raw materials and spare parts needed to re-operate Gaza factories which were shut down last year.