JERUSALEM, 17 June 2007 — The United Nations yesterday urged Israel to reopen crossings into Gaza to avoid a humanitarian crisis in the impoverished territory sealed off from the world after the takeover by Hamas. “The borders need to be open, we cannot collectively punish 1.5 million people in the Gaza Strip. They are already living in miserable conditions,” John Ging, head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), told AFP.

Israel closed all of its border crossing points with Gaza after the Hamas routed Palestinian Authority security services in the impoverished territory. The sealed crossings include the Rafah terminal on the border with Egypt — Gaza’s only window to the outside world that bypasses Israel.

The closures have raised alarm about the impact on Gaza, a tiny densely-populated territory that receives the vast majority of its food, and all its fuel and medical supplies via Israel. “The crossings remaining closed is not an option. The Gaza Strip is entirely dependent of the importation of not just aid, but also commercial trade,” Ging said, adding that 80 percent of Gaza’s population depended on foreign aid.

Israeli Infrastructure Minister Binyamin Ben Eliezer said on Saturday that Israel “must allow the humanitarian aid... I don’t think the Gaza Strip will survive from a humanitarian perspective for more than a month if Israel does not open the lid.” He said Israel would continue to supply electricity and water to the Gaza Strip despite the crisis, but that the crossings would remain closed for the time being. “We will continue to supply the bare minimum (to Gaza) and help them with electricity,” Ben Eliezer told public radio.

Mohammed Mar’i adds from Ramallah:

The Israel Prison Service on Friday separated Palestinian prisoners affiliated with Fatah from those linked with Hamas, after receiving intelligence information indicating that factional violence could break out among the prisoners in the wake of the bloody clashes in the Gaza Strip that led to the Hamas takeover there. This is the first time the Israeli Prison Service has separated Palestinian prisoners on such short notice, without fighting having preceded the move.

Since Friday morning, some 1,200 Fatah-linked prisoners were separated from 800 Hamas-affiliated men in Ketziot Prison in the Negev Desert, and 900 prisoners — about half connected with Hamas and half with Fatah — were separated from each other in Ofer Prison west of West Bank city of Ramallah.