By DPA
Tel Aviv : The Israeli military has allowed 75 people from the Gaza Strip to leave the enclave and travel abroad, a spokesman for the ministry of defence said.
“This was a pilot,” Shlomo Dror said, adding if the exercise is deemed a success, more people from Gaza may be able to leave.
The 75 left the strip through the northern Erez Crossing Sunday with Israel and were bussed to the Nitzana commercial crossing with Egypt.
This was the first time, Dror added, that a large group of Palestinians was able to leave Gaza to travel abroad since June, when Hamas seized control of the strip from rival Fatah forces.
Since then the Rafah Crossing to Egypt, used by Palestinians to travel abroad, has been closed. The Erez Crossing into Israel is normally reserved for humanitarian cases.
Dror said the majority of those who left were patients or people visiting families.
Earlier Sunday, six Palestinian youths infiltrated Israel but were caught almost as soon as they climbed over the border wall, an Israeli military spokesman said.
The six were taken for questioning. Their motives were not immediately clear, but it appeared they had wanted to enter Israel in order to look for work.
However, Israeli villages in the vicinity were placed on alert and residents ordered not to leave their homes, as the incident occurred not far from an area where two heavily-armed militants climbed the border fence Saturday and attacked a district coordination office.
They then fled in the direction of the Israeli village of Netiv Ha’asara. Saturday’s infiltrators were killed in a gun battle with Israeli soldiers rushed to the scene.