JERUSALEM: Israel did not commit to ending its Gaza blockade as part of reconciliation with Turkey and could clamp down even harder on the Palestinian enclave if security is threatened, a senior Israeli official said yesterday.

After Friday’s US-brokered fence-mending announcement, Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said Israel had met his demands it apologize for killing nine Turks aboard a Gaza-bound activist ship in 2010, pay compensation and ease the blockade.

“If there is quiet, the processes easing the lives of Gazan residents will continue. And if there is Katyusha (rocket) fire, then these moves will be slowed and even stopped and, if necessary, even reversed,” Israeli national security adviser Yaakov Amidror said.

“We did not agree to promise (Turkey) that under any condition we would continue to transfer all the things into Gaza and ease up on the residents of Gaza if there is shooting from there,” he told Israel’s Army Radio. “We do not intend to give up on our right to respond to what happens in Gaza because of the agreement with the Turks.”

Two Israeli officials told Reuters they knew of no plan to review the naval blockade, imposed during the Gaza war of 2008-2009 and which Israel says stems arms shipments to the territory’s Hamas government and smaller factions.

Hamas, which has largely held fire since its eight-day war with Israel in November, said on Friday that Erdogan told its leader, Khaled Meshaal, that the Jewish state had promised to “lift the siege on the Palestinian people.”

Meanwhile, hundreds of Israeli police for the second time dismantled a Palestinian protest encampment on the outskirts of Jerusalem overnight, activists and police said yesterday.

Activists set up the camp, known as Bab Al-Shams, on a patch of land known as E1 which lies between east Jerusalem and the West Bank settlement of Maale Adumim in a bid to draw attention to controversial Israeli plans to build there.

Tents were pitched on Wednesday to highlight the issue at the start of a landmark three-day visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories by US President Barack Obama — his first since taking office more than four years ago.