GAZA CITY: Two Palestinian militants were killed in an explosion in the northern Gaza Strip yesterday morning.
The Israeli army has denied claims by witnesses that a reconnaissance drone fired a rocket at a group of five gunmen who gathered near the border town of Beit Hanoun.
Other witnesses however said a rocket the group was about to fire into Israel exploded prematurely.
Medical sources said that a man’s body was brought to Kamal Adwan hospital in Jabaliya and another badly wounded man died soon after arrival. A third one was moderately hurt.
Security sources said the fighters belonged to the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC), an armed group loyal to the Islamic Hamas movement.
Meanwhile, Palestinian officials yesterday warned that the humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip was deteriorating because Israel was showing no signs of opening crossing points.
“There are no indications that goods required to meet the basic needs of the Gaza Strip will be allowed to enter in the next few days,” said Hatem Owaida, an official at the ministry of economics.
Israel closed the commercial crossing points along the Gaza Strip on November 4, following a surge of violence that left a June ceasefire in tatters.
Ten Hamas militants have been killed since. The Islamic movement, which runs the Gaza Strip, responded by resuming rocket attacks against Israeli border towns.
Israel was supposed to allow limited food and dairy supplies into Gaza as well as 18 truckloads of UN aid, “but cancelled the move at the last minute,” according to Owaida.
The crisis forced the UN Relief and Works Agency (Unrwa) to halt delivering food aid to 750,000 refugees in the impoverished Strip.
During the closure, reduced amounts of industrial diesel fuel were trucked in to the territory’s only power plant. The station was shut down again on Thursday owing to a lack of fuel, leaving more than quarter of Gaza Strip in darkness.
Mahmoud al-Shawa, director of a petrol station owners’ association, warned that sewage treatment, water supplies and other service utilities are grinding to a halt because of the lack of fuel.
Outgoing Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert will meet Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas tomorrow to discuss tensions in the Gaza Strip and the sluggish peace talks, officials said yesterday.
Senior Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat said the two leaders will meet at Olmert’s Jerusalem residence. A senior Israeli official confirmed the meeting’s timing and location.
The meeting, the first in over two months, will focus on the five-month-old ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, the two officials said.
Abbas was expected to ask Olmert to ease the Gaza blockade, Erakat said.
The Palestinian leader will also discuss Israel’s ongoing settlement activity in the occupied West Bank, “notably in the wake of reports that (Defence Minister Ehud) Barak has authorised new construction,” Erakat added.
l Oxfam warned yesterday that Gaza faces a humanitarian catastrophe unless Israel’s blockade is lifted.
The British-based aid agency urged world leaders to exert pressure on Israel to secure an end to the blockade and also called for the truce agreed in June to be maintained.
“World leaders must step up and exercise all their political might to break the blockade of Gaza,” Oxfam’s executive director Jeremy Hobbs said.
“As a matter of humanitarian imperative, Israeli leaders must resume supplies into Gaza without further delay.
“If Israelis and Palestinians alike don’t exert every effort now to maintain the truce which has held since last June, the result could be catastrophic for civilians both in Gaza and in nearby Israeli towns,” he said. - Agencies
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