OCCUPIED JERUSALEM/GAZA CITY (AFP)
Petrol stations shut across the Hamas-controlled Gaza strip on Sunday as Israel continued to provide only restricted quantities of fuel to the territory, industry officials and witnesses said.
"Sorry, no fuel, no benzine, no petrol," read a typical sign posted at a Gaza City petrol station.
"All stations in Gaza have been shut down because there is no fuel of any kind," Mahmoud al-Khuzudnar, a deputy chief of a Gaza association for petrol stations, told AFP.
Israel, which provides Gaza with all its fuel, has delivered only restricted supplies since October 28 and Khuzudnar said that the association was not releasing for sale the quantities received on Sunday in protest of the cuts.
Khuzudnar said that 60,000 liters of diesel came through via Israel on Sunday instead of the 350,000 liters that are needed on a daily basis.
Palestinian and Israeli human rights groups had appealed to Israel's Supreme Court to halt the restrictions, calling them an act of illegal collective punishment that endangered civilians.
But on Friday the court said the state could continue with the cuts, saying it was possible to do so without affecting the humanitarian situation in the territory, home of 1.5 million Palestinians.
Since Hamas violently seized power in Gaza in mid-June, Israel has tightened restrictions on the movement of people and of goods -- fuel included -- in an out of the impoverished, overcrowded territory.
The restrictions have sparked concern that the humanitarian situation in the territory, where the vast majority of people depend on aid, would deteriorate.
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Barak orders Meanwhile, Defense Minister Ehud Barak said he has authorized the army to target militant structures across Gaza Strip as Israel considers a broad military incursion into the territory.
"The defense minister has recently authorized the army to expand its operations in response to the Hamas fire to include targeting manned Hamas military positions," Barak's office quoted him as telling the weekly cabinet meeting.
Israel has in recent months carried out strikes against rocket-launching cells and infrastructure, but has refrained from targeting Hamas military headquarters since the Islamist movement seized control over Gaza last June, a senior security source told AFP.
The army has now been given the green light to bomb militant structures and positions all over the impoverished Palestinian territory in response to nearly daily rocket fire into southern Israel, he added.
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's government has been debating whether to launch a broad military operation in Gaza, with Barak repeatedly warning that "every day brings us closer to an operation."
Eighteen Palestinians have been killed in a series of Israeli air and ground operations across Gaza over the past week, marking a sharp escalation in the violence there. |
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254 Palestinians allowed to leave Also on Sunday Israel allowed 254 Palestinians from Gaza to cross into Egypt via Israeli territory for the first time in months, witnesses and officials said.
The Palestinians crossed the Erez checkpoint between northern Gaza and Israel and were then taken by bus to the El-Oja (Nizana) crossing between Egypt and Israel, Palestinian officials responsible for coordination with Israel said.
Most of the Palestinians either study or work abroad, they said, adding that it was the first time in several months that Israel had allowed people to cross into Egypt.
The Rafah terminal with Egypt -- Gaza's only border crossing that bypasses Israel -- has been closed since the Hamas takeover, and the only way for people to move between Gaza and Egypt has been when Israel has allowed people to be taken by bus between Erez and El-Oja. |
