Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak is expected this week to approve a gradual severance of the supply of electricity and fuel to the Gaza Strip in response to persistent rocket fire from the Palestinian territory, military officials said yesterday.
The plan formulated by a senior team lead by Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilnai will be approved by Barak on Thursday, the officials said on condition of anonymity since they were not authorized to talk to the press. It was not immediately clear when the decision would take effect.
"It's clear that we have to cut off ... the supply of electricity and the supply of fuel," Vilnai told Army Radio yesterday. "We will dramatically reduce the flow of electricity from Israel over several weeks."
Israel would start by cutting electricity for 15 minutes, then a half hour, and then increase the time each day as long as rocket fire continues, the military officials said.
The proposal calls for Israel not to cut off the power supply to hospitals and other vital installations in an effort to avoid a humanitarian crisis, Vilnai said.
The intent is to force the Hamas rulers of the Gaza Strip to stop the constant rocket fire, Vilnai said. The barrages disrupt life in the south.
Olmert's Cabinet had declared the impoverished strip where 1.4 million Palestinians live "hostile territory" in September, clearing legal hurdles for a possible cutoff of electricity.
Israel has severely restricted the flow of cargo and people through Gaza's crossings since the violent Islamic Hamas took control of the coastal strip in June.
A missing fingertip offers a clue to Mako Nishimura’s criminal past as one of Japan’s few female yakuza, but after clawing her way out of the underworld, she now spends her days helping other retired gangsters reintegrate into society. The multibillion-dollar yakuza organized crime network has long ruled over Japan’s drug rings, illicit gambling dens and sex trade. In the past few years, the empire has started to crumble as members have dwindled and laws targeting mafia are tightened. An intensifying police crackdown has shrunk yakuza forces nationwide, with their numbers dipping below 20,000 last year for the first time since records
CAUSE UNKNOWN: Weather and runway conditions were suitable for flight operations at the time of the accident, and no distress signal was sent, authorities said A cargo aircraft skidded off the runway into the sea at Hong Kong International Airport early yesterday, killing two ground crew in a patrol car, in one of the worst accidents in the airport’s 27-year history. The incident occurred at about 3:50am, when the plane is suspected to have lost control upon landing, veering off the runway and crashing through a fence, the Airport Authority Hong Kong said. The jet hit a security patrol car on the perimeter road outside the runway zone, which then fell into the water, it said in a statement. The four crew members on the plane, which
Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and its junior partner yesterday signed a coalition deal, paving the way for Sanae Takaichi to become the nation’s first female prime minister. The 11th-hour agreement with the Japan Innovation Party (JIP) came just a day before the lower house was due to vote on Takaichi’s appointment as the fifth prime minister in as many years. If she wins, she will take office the same day. “I’m very much looking forward to working with you on efforts to make Japan’s economy stronger, and to reshape Japan as a country that can be responsible for future generations,”
Indonesia was to sign an agreement to repatriate two British nationals, including a grandmother languishing on death row for drug-related crimes, an Indonesian government source said yesterday. “The practical arrangement will be signed today. The transfer will be done immediately after the technical side of the transfer is agreed,” the source said, identifying Lindsay Sandiford and 35-year-old Shahab Shahabadi as the people being transferred. Sandiford, a grandmother, was sentenced to death on the island of Bali in 2013 after she was convicted of trafficking drugs. Customs officers found cocaine worth an estimated US$2.14 million hidden in a false bottom in Sandiford’s suitcase when
RSS