Lights back on in Gaza as Israel eases blockade
GAZA CITY (AFP) — The lights went back on in parts of Gaza City Tuesday as Israel eased a blockade and allowed some fuel in to the impoverished Hamas-run territory, as the UN Security Council considered calls for a complete end to the lockdown.
Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas called on the Jewish state to lift the lockdown, now in its fifth day, amid mounting international fears of a humanitarian crisis in a territory where most people depend on foreign aid.
The United States, while also expressing concern about the impact of the blockade on the people, said Israel was defending itself against rocket attacks by Palestinian militants.
At least five people were wounded when a protest turned violent at the Rafah crossing into Egypt -- Gaza's sole crossing bypassing Israel -- with an exchange of gunfire between the Palestinian protesters and Egyptian security forces.
Trucks carrying cooking gas, industrial diesel and fuel oil entered Gaza early Tuesday for the first time since Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak ordered the strip sealed off late Thursday in response to persistent rocket fire.
Hours later the territory's sole power plant went back online and electricity returned to blocks in Gaza City that had been without power since the plant shut down on Sunday.
Several trucks carrying food also entered the territory, aid officials said, and others with medicine and humanitarian aid are expected in on Wednesday.
Israel warned that Tuesday's fuel deliveries were a "one-off shipment" that would be reassessed based on rocket and mortar fire from Gaza.
"We want to send a clear message to Hamas but at the same time, we do not wish to get into clashes with the international community," foreign ministry spokesman Arye Mekel said.
The blockade had sparked an international outcry on Monday, with the European Union accusing Israel of a collective punishment of Gaza's 1.5-million civilian population.
On Tuesday, international aid agencies warned that Gaza was at risk of a "total collapse" of its infrastructure if Israeli blockade measures continued.
"The blockade measures have an enormous human cost and we have asked Israel to immediately lift all retaliatory measures," Dorothea Krimitsas, a spokeswoman for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said in Geneva.
And in New York, the Security Council met in emergency session to consider the matter.
Its ambassadors were discussing a draft submitted by Libya, the council chair this month, that would call on Israel to end its blockade of Gaza and ensure "unhindered access for humanitarian assistance to the Palestinian people," according to a copy of the text obtained by AFP.
The statement would also urge Israel "to abide by its obligation under international law, including humanitarian and human rights law, and immediately to cease all its illegal measures and practices against the Palestinian civilian population in the Gaza Strip."
Western diplomats said they would push for language that would also call for an end to rocket firing into Israel.
Israel's main ally Washington on Tuesday reiterated that Hamas bore responsibility for the lockdown because of the continuing rocket fire, but said it had warned Israel about not allowing a humanitarian crisis to develop.
"Ultimately, Hamas is to blame for this circumstance because if they were more responsible toward the international community, then Gaza would be connected to the outside world rather than cut off," US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said.
"But that said, nobody wants innocent Gazans to suffer so we have spoken to the Israelis about the importance of not allowing a humanitarian crisis to unfold there," she said.
White House spokeswoman Daana Perino added that "the Palestinians are clearly seeing there is a choice that they can make, which is to live under the near-humanitarian crisis that they have in Gaza, or the possibility of a Palestinian state."
Abbas called on Israel to fully lift the lockdown of the territory from which his forces were ousted by Hamas in June.
"This is insufficient and we will continue our efforts to get a total lifting of the blockade," Abbas told reporters.
In London, Palestinian prime minister Salam Fayyad described the situation in Gaza as intolerable but said it would not stop the renewed peace process revived in late November under US stewardship.
"Life has become completely unbearable; that should not be allowed to continue," Fayyad said. "Negotiations clearly can proceed even under the very difficult situation that we have right now."
At the Rafah crossing, four Palestinians and an Egyptian policeman were wounded after gunfire erupted as security forces tried to prevent the demonstrators from breaking through to the Egyptian side.
Militants fired 17 rockets at Israel early on Tuesday, and five hit Israeli territory without causing casualties, the army said. The number of rockets fired from Gaza has fallen markedly in recent days.
Over the past week, Israeli strikes against militants in Gaza killed 38 people, most of them gunmen, while militants fired more than 200 rockets and mortar rounds into Israel, lightly wounding at least 10 people.
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