International food aid to the residents of the Gaza Strip will have to be suspended if Israel's closure of the coastal territory continues, a UN aid agency spokesman said Monday, after Israel sealed its crossings into Gaza and reduced fuel provisions to the coastal territory.
"We are going to have to suspend operations on Thursday or Friday... because we are running out of plastic bags we use for food, and we are running out of fuel," said Chris Gunness, spokesman for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, which distributes food aid to 860,000 Palestinian refugees in Gaza.
Most of Gaza's 1.4 million residents are reliant on food aid for survival. However, another UN agency which provides food to 270,000 Gaza residents said it had enough supplies only until the end of this week.
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"UNRWA will run out of the plastic bags on Thursday," said its Gaza director, John Ging. The bags are used for sugar and lentil rations.
Ging said he expected fuel supplies to run out at the same time. UNRWA is now giving emergency fuel supplies to hospitals and pharmacies. The agency operates schools, medical clinics and distributes food throughout Gaza.
"All the humanitarian agencies on ground are trying to avert a disaster but we are running out of time," Ging said. We are all in a very vulnerable situation because of limited supplies.
Ging said his staff made an application to the Defense Ministry, which controls what can enter Gaza, to receive more plastic bags. He said the application was approved on Sunday, but that Israel had already sealed off Gaza by that stage.
Defense Ministry officials were not available for comment.
As for Gaza hospitals, a spokeswoman for the International Committee of the Red Cross, Michele Mercier, said they "still have stocks, but it won't last for more than two or three days."
"If no more stocks are available, you can imagine what it means for the treatment of wounded and... everyday medical care would be affected," Mercier said.
Haniyeh calls on Egypt to open border to let supplies into Gaza Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh on Monday demanded that Egypt open its border with the Gaza Strip to allow in supplies.
"We need actions, and not statements," Haniyeh said, suggesting that Hamas send a delegation to Egypt to discuss the idea.
Hundreds of Gaza residents, doctors in white coats, Hamas lawmakers and drivers with their ambulances demonstrated near the border with Egypt.
The Egyptian authorities received information that Palestinian militants may storm the Rafah crossing, which prompted them to send hundreds of security forces for additional deployment along the joint border with the Gaza Strip, sources said.
Also Monday, some 60 empty fuel trucks lined up at the Egypt-Gaza border, in a protest organized by gas station owners who demanded that supplies be let in through Egypt.
Meanwhile, a Fatah lawmaker backed by hundreds of demonstrators on Monday urged Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to call off peace talks with Israel in the wake of the fuel cuts to Gaza.
"We ask the Palestinian Authority to halt negotiations, and demand that [Israel] lift the embargo on Gaza as a condition of returning to negotiations," Palestinian lawmaker Mustafa Barghouti told reporters in the West Bank city of Ramallah.
About 200 demonstrators in Ramallah waving Palestinian flags and
carrying signs also called on their leadership to halt the talks with Israel.
"Negotiators for Abbas' government will raise the Gaza situation in the next negotiating session, but Abbas does not want to pull out of the talks because of what's happening in Gaza," said Nabil Shaath, Abbas' representative in Egypt.
Hamas leaders in Gaza said their West Bank rivals were partly to blame for the crisis, by not loudly condeming Israel's moves in the Strip. They called on Arab countries to help.
Egypt, France, EU urge Israel to 'end collective punishment' Meanwhile, Hamas political leader Khaled Meshal spoke by telephone to Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit, who briefed him on international efforts to make Israel "end this tragedy immediately," Egyptian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hossam Zaki said.
"Israel has a clear international obligation as an occupying force," Zaki said. "The collective punishment should stop immediately."
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on Monday called Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to express his concern over the deteriorating situation in Gaza.
France's foreign ministry spokesman on Monday also condemned Israel's closure of Gaza, saying it was an unfair collective punishment of the Strip's residents.
The French spokesman called for Israel to reopen the Gaza crossings, and renew fuel supply to the area. He also called for an end to Qassam rocket strikes directed at Israel.
The European Commission on Monday urged Israel to restart fuel supplies to Gaza.
"I have made clear that I am against this collective punishment of the people of Gaza," EU External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner said in a statement.
"I urge the Israeli authorities to restart fuel supplies and open the crossings for the passage of humanitarian and commercial supplies."
"Neither the blockade nor the recent military strikes are able to prevent the rocket attacks. Only a credible political agreement this year, as foreseen at Annapolis, can turn Palestinians away from violence," Ferrero-Waldner added, referring to U.S.-hosted talks late last year.
The Syrian Foreign Ministry also demanded an immediate end to the collective punishment and Israeli crimes, saying Israel was violating the simplest rules of human rights.
Saudi Arabia called Israel's actions a "brutal collective punishment" and said it would increase humanitarian aid to Palestinians.
"Saudi Arabia is extremely concerned about Israeli violations and Israel's practice of the most brutal form of group punishment in the Gaza Strip and West Bank," a Riyadh cabinet statement said.
Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Siniora, meanwhile, described Gaza developments as a serious escalation of Israel's racial discrimination and blatant human rights violations against Palestinians, under the pretext of confronting Hamas.
In a statement issued by his office, Siniora said the Israeli actions in Gaza were "racist and barbaric."
"It is not permissible under any pretext or justification to accept, or remain silent on the Israeli actions," he said.
Syria-based Palestinian groups also called on Arab countries to work toward ending Israel's siege of Gaza.
Ahmed Jibril, the head of the radical Popular Front for the Liberation of
Palestine-General Command, called Israeli actions "war crimes." Jibril told The Associated Press they would have dire consequences not only on the Palestinian people but also on pro-U.S. Arab regimes.
"The coming days will witness a lot of unimaginable events ... in different places inside the Arab world and outside, to assist millions of Palestinians who are starving," he warned cryptically.
He said recent attacks in Iraq against U.S. troops were an effort to express anger over the siege in Gaza, adding that this might happen anywhere in the world.
Moussa Abu Marzouk, deputy head of Hamas' Syria-based political bureau, said the Israeli fuel cutoff was a crime against humanity, contrary to all international laws.
In the Jordanian capital, a sit-in protest was due later Monday at the
headquarters of the Islamic Action Front, Jordan's largest opposition group. A pro-Gaza protest was planned at an Amman-based Palestinian refugee camp in the late afternoon.
Jordanian columnist Bassam Emoush linked the Gaza developments with this
month's Mideast visit by U.S. President George W. Bush, who he said blamed the Arabs for the region's shortcomings but failed to mention those responsible for massacres against the Palestinians.
"The irony is that instead of ending the Zionists' crimes, Bush gave us
lectures on peacemaking... and tried to incite us against Iran, Emoush, a former government minister sacked for his membership in the country's largest Islamic group, wrote in the pro-government Al Rai newspaper.
In Kuwait, the foreign ministry said it has asked the five permanent members of the UN Security Council to pressure Israel to lift the Gaza siege.
Foreign ministry undersecretary Khaled al-Jarrallah told the ambassadors of the five countries it was their international responsibility to do this, state-owned Kuwait News Agency said.
Iran offers to host emergency meet on Gaza Meanwhile, Iran on Monday announced its readiness to host an emergency meeting in Tehran over Israeli actions in the Gaza Strip.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad-Ali Hosseini said in his weekly press briefing that Iran would be ready to host an emergency meeting of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) or attend at the highest level wherever the meeting was held.
Condemning the Israeli policy towards Gaza, the spokesman criticized international bodies for immediately voicing their protest over other issues but remaining silent when it comes to Israel.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki have both called for an emergency meeting of the OIC to halt what they call "atrocities" in northern Gaza.
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