U.N.: We Are Hours Away From Ending All Aid To Gaza
Agencie France Presse:
The United Nations warned that aid distribution would end in the Gaza Strip on Thursday unless Israel allows new fuel supplies, but Israel blamed Hamas for the shortages.
“We are hours away from shutting down our operation, said John Ging, who heads the UN Relief and Works Agency office in Gaza. “We didn’t receive fuel,” he told AFP.
UN officials said UNRWA and the World Food Programme, who together feed more than one million Gazans, would have to suspend aid distribution until they receive diesel for the trucks that deliver the food.
Israel, which maintains a punishing blockade on the impoverished Palestinian territory, claimed Hamas was preventing distribution of one million litres of fuel (264,000 gallons) delivered about a week ago to the Nahal Oz terminal on the Gaza border.
“Hamas has prevented the use of this fuel, notably for humanitarian use,” said foreign ministry spokesman Arye Mekel. “Hamas is creating an artificial and dishonest crisis.”
A military spokesman said it was impossible to deliver any more fuel until the existing supplies are picked up.
“We have no room; the tanks are full,” he said, pointing out that recently delivered fuel was stocked on the Palestinian side of the Nahal Oz terminal, which supplies all of Gaza’s fuel needs.
But the UN agencies get their own supplies separately.
“This is not our fuel,” Ging said of the supplies currently stocked at Nahal Oz.
An UNRWA official said Israel promised to supply 100,000 litres of diesel and 20,000 litres of petrol for the United Nations on Thursday.
Israel halted the supply of petrol and diesel and cut fuel supplies for Gaza’s power plant by half after Palestinian militants attacked Nahal Oz two weeks ago, killing two Israeli civilian employees.
It resumed shipments of fuel for the power plant several days later, but again halted the deliveries for several days after another attack killed three Israeli soldiers near the crossing.
Israel has sealed the impoverished territory off from all but vital humanitarian aid since Hamas, an Islamist movement pledged to the destruction of the Jewish state, seized control of the territory in June.
Robert Serry, the UN’s special envoy to the Middle East peace process, on Wednesday urged Palestinian militants to halt their attacks on border crossings and called on Israel to lift its blockade on the territory.
Humanitarian agencies say Gaza, one of the world’s most densely populated areas with 1.5 million people living in a narrow sliver of land, is teetering on the brink of disaster.
Israel says the sanctions are necessary to pressure Hamas to end near-daily rocket attacks on Israeli communities and military positions near the fenced-off border.
The situation in Gaza was taken up on Wednesday at a UN Security Council session in New York that saw Western ambassadors walk out in protest after the Libyan delegate compared the situation in the territory to that in Nazi death camps.
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Cannibalism is a solution for the savages.
Soylent Green contains no pork.
April 24th, 2008 at 5:41 amWhy the f*ck should Israel have to supply the Gazans anything? Why don’t they just fuel from their Muslim brothers in Eygpt or Saudi Arabia?
April 24th, 2008 at 5:41 amThe stinkin’ Gazans need to stop shootin’ rockets and start drilling for their own damn oil.
Just one question? Why would you feed or show compassion to your Enemy?
April 24th, 2008 at 6:07 amSo, once again the UN proves that they are not for the side of right and freedom. How many more examples of UN “fairness” does the world need to see to get it into their heads that the UN is a morally defunct organization? It should be shut down, kicked out of NYC, and replaced with a League of Free Nations. The price of admission to which is democracy in your country, otherwise fuck off then.
April 24th, 2008 at 7:29 amFwenchy, fwench newspaper, catapault the shit over the wall. No fuel used, very green.
April 24th, 2008 at 8:09 amYes, get us out of the UN, quit giving them 80% and more of their operating funds.
What the Israelis are doing is no different than what Clinton and Co. did to the Branch Davidian folks in Waco, except for burning the place to the ground, and i think that should be the next step of the IDF. If Slick Willy and Janet Reno could do it with impugnity, then so can the IDF.
April 24th, 2008 at 8:10 amafter the Libyan delegate compared the situation in the territory to that in Nazi death camps
uh, fwency there ?
April 24th, 2008 at 8:38 amIf it’s that bad there franchie, who do you think made it that way? Last time I checked the Libyans were not exactly a reliable bunch of people either.
The Palestinians do not produce anything. The Palestians live off of handouts. They cannot sustain themselves despite the # of years they have been living there. Unless you consider hatred and terrorism as an exported product.
They try to kill innocent Jews constantly and when Israel responds the world looks at Israel as the problem when it’s the Palestinians that choose not to co-exist with their neighbor rather they wish to irradiate them.
April 24th, 2008 at 9:06 ammess, say, because it’s AP, then it’s arab view ?
you could get the same report from any agency, they all have muslims who work for them
April 24th, 2008 at 9:40 amBrad W, at Waco there was strong suspicion that they had many automatic weapons, enough to get the attention of the ATF. The wacos in Waco chose to shoot first killing an ATF agent. Remember the pictures of the wacos shooting through the wall. Then all bets are off. They, the wacos went to hell. Rather symbolic in the way the went. They deserved everything they got.
April 24th, 2008 at 9:54 amSo why doesn’t the freakin’ UN go to their buddies Chavez, Acmadinijad, Castro, Putin, and other assorted European sympathizers and get the “humanitarian” supplies and oil they need for the Palestinians? Why do the Israelis, who are bombed constantly by them, have to give them anything? Please, this has gotten too weird. Israel needs to develop some intestinal fortitude and say “we won’t give them anything any more. Time for the rest of you haters to step up.”
April 24th, 2008 at 12:41 pm