Israel has lifted the blanket ban it imposed on the entry of Palestinian workers from the Gaza Strip after a suicide bombing on Wednesday that killed four Israeli security personnel at a border crossing.
Announcing the relatively swift end of a "general closure", the army said Gaza labourers and merchants could enter Israel and a border industrial park near the scene of the attack by a woman suicide bomber from the militant Islamic group Hamas.
The army announced no numbers and said it was acting on government orders and in accordance with security assessments. Palestinian security sources said they were told that some 15,000 Gazans could return to their jobs in Israel.
Tens of thousands of Palestinians worked in Israel before the start in September 2000 of an uprising in the West Bank and the since fenced-in Gaza Strip.
Israel has come under international condemnation for its tight travel restrictions in the West Bank and Gaza Strip,
measures that have devastated the Palestinian economy.
Israel says the clampdowns are necessary to stop suicide bombers from reaching its cities. Hundreds of Israelis have been killed in such attacks.