Israel
Chokes Gaza Some More
By Peter Hirschberg
31 October, 2007
Inter
Press Service
JERUSALEM, Oct 31
(IPS) - Israel has begun limiting fuel supplies to Gaza as
part of punitive measures it is implementing in an attempt to stem the
firing of rockets by militants from the coastal strip into Israel. But
Palestinian leaders and human rights groups are warning the move could
spark a humanitarian crisis.
Both Israeli and Palestinian
officials confirmed that there was a reduction this week in the fuel
supplies coming into the narrow strip, which is home to some 1.5 million
Palestinians. Ahmed Ali, the deputy director of Gaza's Petroleum Authority,
confirmed that shipments of diesel fuel and gasoline were 30 percent
smaller than regular deliveries. Israeli officials said the reduction
was smaller.
The move comes after Israeli
defence minister Ehud Barak approved a plan last week to reduce power
and fuel supplies to Gaza. And it comes in the wake of an escalation
in the firing of rockets from Gaza by Palestinian militants at towns
inside Israel.
"Because this is an
entity that is hostile to us, there is no reason for us to supply them
with electricity beyond the minimum required to prevent a crisis,"
said deputy defence minister Matan Vilnai. Last month, the Israeli government
declared the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip a "hostile entity".
Vilnai said the plan was
"to begin gradually cutting the electricity supply without harming
humanitarian sources like hospitals."
Israel supplies 120 of the
200 megawatts of electricity that Gazans use. Another 65 megawatts is
produced at a local Palestinian power plant, and 17 megawatts are supplied
by Egypt. While Israel began reducing the fuel supply on Sunday, the
Israeli attorney general ruled that the government could not go ahead
with reducing the power supply until it had studied further the humanitarian
ramifications of such a move.
Some Israeli ministers suggested
that with the continued firing of rockets, Israel was left with little
choice but to take harsh measures. Infrastructure Minister Benjamin
Ben-Eliezer pointed to repeated attempts by militants to target the
main power station in Ashkelon, an Israeli town eight kilometres north
of Gaza. Palestinian militants, said Ben-Eliezer, were "firing
rockets at the same power station that provides them with electricity."
Israel has tried different
measures in the past, including military forays into Gaza and air strikes
on cars carrying militants, in a bid to stem the rocket fire. But militants
have remained undeterred, continuing to fire their makeshift rockets
into Israel.
The rockets have killed several
people, but their impact has been largely psychological, sowing panic
among residents in the southern Israeli town Sderot. During periods
of heavy rocket fire, many of the town's residents have fled northward
out of range of the rockets.
"We've had a situation
where day after day, week after week, month after month, we've had rockets
fired from Gaza by extremists, designed to kill our people," said
foreign ministry spokesman Mark Regev. "The Israeli cabinet has
decided that this situation just can't go on, and we will act to defend
our citizens."
Israeli officials have said
the plan is to reduce the quantity of fuel being transported into Gaza
by five to 11 percent, but that this will not include fuel supplies
to the main power plant in the strip. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert recently
told Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas that the punitive measures
Israel is taking will not precipitate a humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
But, while militants in Gaza
said the measures would not subdue them, Palestinian political leaders
accused Israel of "war crimes", and called for international
intervention to head off the humanitarian crisis they say will surely
result from a cut in fuel and electricity supplies. Taher al-Nunu, a
spokesman for Hamas in Gaza, called the decision "a crime against
one-and-a-half million Palestinians living in Gaza."
Riyad Malki, spokesman for
the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah, said the decision to cut fuel
supplies was "catastrophic" and that it would "harm the
Palestinian people and not Hamas. Hamas can get all the fuel it needs,
but the Palestinian people will pay for it."
Since Hamas took Gaza by
force earlier this year, Israel has followed a policy of trying to reward
Palestinian moderates, like President Mahmoud Abbas who resides in the
West Bank town of Ramallah, and punish the more hardline Hamas. But
some in Israel have questioned whether the punitive measures will stop
the rocket salvos. In the military, there are those who believe it will
in fact spur more rocket attacks from militants bent on proving that
Israel cannot stop them.
Deputy defence minister Vilnai
has admitted he does not expect the rockets to suddenly stop falling.
But he insists the new measures are not just meant as a deterrent but
are part of a broader policy whereby Israel is continuing its disengagement
from responsibility for Gaza.
International aid organisations
and Israeli human rights groups say the new measures will worsen the
already harsh situation in the strip. B'tselem, an Israeli rights group,
has appealed to the High Court against the new sanctions.
"Cutting fuel supplies
into Gaza will only exacerbate the humanitarian problems that already
exist," said Sarit Michaeli, a spokesperson for the organisation.
"Israel still exercises enormous control over Gaza. Therefore,
it has obligations under international law to allow the normal running
of everyday life."
John Ging, head of the United
Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East
(UNWRA) in Gaza said that "the stated purpose of all of this is
to...bring an end to rocket fire into Israel, which we repeatedly condemn.
But doing it in this way, which is essentially collectively punishing
the population for firing these rockets into Israel, will not succeed.
In fact, we suspect it will engender more hostility among the population
of Gaza."
Copyright © 2007 IPS-Inter
Press Service
Leave
A Comment
&
Share Your Insights
Comment
Policy
Digg
it! And spread the word!
Here is a unique chance to help this article to be read by thousands
of people more. You just Digg it, and it will appear in the home page
of Digg.com and thousands more will read it. Digg is nothing but an
vote, the article with most votes will go to the top of the page. So,
as you read just give a digg and help thousands more to read this article.