The UN warned that aid distribution would end in the Gaza Strip yesterday 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 (UNRWA) office in Gaza. “We didn’t receive fuel.”
UN officials said UNRWA and the World Food Programme, which together feed more than 1 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 1 million liters of fuel 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,” Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Arye Mekel said. “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.
An UNRWA official said Israel promised to supply 100,000 liters of diesel and 20,000 liters of petrol for the UN yesterday.
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.
The issue was taken up on Wednesday at a UN Security Council session that saw Western ambassadors walk out in protest after the Libyan delegate compared the situation in Gaza to a Nazi death camp.
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