Israel cuts fuel supplies to Gaza Strip

Israel is currently starving the Gaza strip in an effort to make life there unbearable enough to prompt the eviction of Hamas by its inhabitants. Some commentators have suggested that the confinement of Gaza is more than that, with Khalid Amayreh calling it ‘the Auschwitz of our time.’

UN officials have reported that the humanitarian situation is dire, with food shortages, low medicine stocks, a total economic embargo (from land and sea) and intensifying violence within the imprisoned population.

This has all been caused by the Israeli government’s decision to declare war on the population of the strip for first electing Hamas and then supporting the eviction of Fatah, a splinter group from which attempted a coup against the elected government earlier this year.

Now fuel supplies are being squeezed. Ambulances may lie still. Everything will, if possible, become harder again.

Israel began yesterday to reduce fuel supplies to the Gaza Strip in retaliation for the almost daily rocket fire on Sderot and other border towns and villages. A spokesman said Israel was also limiting the flow of food and medicines to “the minimum the Palestinians need to avoid a humanitarian crisis.”

Dor Alon, the private Israeli company that sells fuel to Gaza, confirmed yesterday that it had been ordered by the Defence Ministry to reduce shipments. Conflicting Palestinian estimates of the size of the initial cuts ranged from 12 to 40 per cent.

Shlomo Dror, an Israeli spokesman, said that they were going to reduce supplies by 13 per cent overall, but the heaviest cuts would be on petrol for private cars. Diesel fuel for power stations, ambulances and public transport would continue to be delivered at almost the same level as before. European aid officials reported that the Gaza power station had received a full supply yesterday.

Posted by Szamko
Just tries to tell the truth.

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