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Israel will allow a one-time transfer of cement into Gaza for the first time since its war in the Hamas-ruled enclave and amid a new US peace push in the region, officials said on Wednesday.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Ehud Barak okayed the transfer of more than 310 tonnes of cement for rebuilding a flour mill, a sewage treatment facility and the British cemetery, one defence official said.
The one-off consignment will also include some steel and is expected to be transferred "in the coming weeks," he said.
Many buildings in Gaza remain in ruins since Israel's December-January offensive because of an acute shortage of construction materials that can only officially enter Gaza through Israel-controlled crossings.
Israel recently authorised the monthly transfer of 104 million shekels (26 million dollars) into Gaza to pay the wages of Palestinian Authority and United Nations Works and Relief Agency (UNRWA) employees.
Israel imposed a punishing blockade on the Gaza Strip after the Islamist Hamas movement seized control of the territory in June 2007, ousting forces loyal to secular Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas.
Netanyahu later on Thursday met US National Security Advisor James Jones and told him that crossings between Israel and Gaza "will only reopen permanently once (soldier) Gilad Shalit has been freed," an official said.
Shalit was captured in June 2006 by armed Palestinian militants, including Hamas, during a deadly cross-border raid.
Jones, the last of three senior US officials visiting the region this week in a bid to revive the stagnant Middle East peace process, is due to meet the Palestinian leadership in the occupied West Bank on Thursday.
Israel has come under massive international pressure to ease the blockade on Gaza following its 22-day offensive on the territory.
So far it has agreed to allow more food and basic goods in, but has steadfastly refused to authorise certain materials it said could be used for military purposes.
Another official told AFP that the army was "examining ways to ensure that the material does not reach Hamas and other militant organisations."
Israel considers Hamas to be a terror group and refuses to have any direct contact with the Islamist movement which refuses to recognise the Jewish state's right to exist or to renounce violence.
UN officials have met with Israeli officials in recent months in an effort to coordinate the transfer of badly needed materials for a number of construction projects in Gaza.
And several UN agencies on Tuesday urged Israel to allow materials into Gaza so that schools damaged in the war can be rebuilt in time for the new academic year.
The Gaza war killed more than 1,400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis, and left swathes of the aid-dependent territory in ruins.
