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Gaza: The Gaza Strip's main power plant will have to halt electricity supplies if Israel does not allow the resumption of fuel shipments to the Hamas-run territory in the next few days, the plant's director said on Saturday.
Israel halted fuel supplies to Gaza on Thursday, a day after Palestinian fighters attacked a border crossing used to pump fuel to the coastal enclave's main power plant.
"In a few days, if the fuel supplies ... are not resumed we will be forced to shut down the entire power plant," Rafiq Maliha, the plant's director, told reporters. "This means we will stop feeding electricity to over half a million people living in Gaza."
The impoverished Gaza Strip is home to 1.5 million people, most of whom are dependent on aid.
The plant provides about a third of Gaza's electricity. Israel provides the rest with a small amount coming from Egypt.
The European Union, which provides fuel to the plant, said it estimated the facility should have enough fuel to last just over a week. An EU official said he was waiting for approval from the Israeli army to resume shipments today.
In New York, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) said that the people in Gaza are facing acute shortage of food, fuel and other basic needs as a result of the blockade imposed by Israel on the region since June 2007.
A statement from the UNRWA headquarters pointed out that the number of trucks carrying food supplies to Gaza is on the decline, as a result of which food prices are soaring beyond control in the region.
The UN agency is facing a tough time in implementing its programme for providing food for over 110,000 children at various schools. Due to shortage of fuel, waste disposal has become extremely difficult for the municipalities, who now have to resort to disposing waste into the sea said the UNRWA statement.
Visit plan
Rice flays carter
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice criticised former President Jimmy Carter for his reported plans to meet the exiled leader of Hamas during a visit to Syria.
Carter has not confirmed the plans to meet Khalid Mesha'al, but Hamas has said the former Democratic president sent an envoy to Damascus requesting a meeting with Hamas.
"I find it hard to understand what is going to be gained by having discussions with Hamas about peace when Hamas is, in fact, the impediment to peace," Rice said on Friday at a press event with German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier.
Rice was responding to a question about Carter's plans but did not mention him by name. "Hamas is a terrorist organisation," she said, repeating the Bush administration's explanation for why it will not meet with members of the group.
The State Department said it twice advised Carter against meeting any representative of Hamas.
A Carter-Mesha'al meeting would be the first public contact in two years between a prominent American figure and Hamas officials.
A press release from the Carter Centre said the former president was to lead a study mission to Israel, the West Bank, Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia and Jordan as part of his "ongoing effort to support peace, democracy and human rights in the region".
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