JERUSALEM — Israel’s move to cut energy supplies to the Gaza Strip amounts to collective punishment of civilians and violates the laws of war, Human Rights Watch said in a report published yesterday. Aid groups have warned that the Israeli sanctions are set to tighten today with a reduction of electricity provided to the impoverished Hamas-run territory.
“Israel’s cuts of fuel and electricity to Gaza, set to escalate today, amount to collective punishment of the civilian population, and violate Israel’s obligations under the laws of war,” the New York-based group said.
Israel began reducing the amount of fuel it supplied to Gaza in late October after declaring the coastal strip a “hostile entity” following its takeover by Hamas, an Islamist movement pledged to the destruction of the Jewish state.
Israel says the measures are aimed at stopping Gaza militants from firing rockets into Israel and has pledged not to allow a humanitarian disaster in the territory where most of the population depends on foreign aid.
But HRW said the measures were affecting civilians not involved in anti-Israeli violence and having a grave impact on essential infrastructure like hospitals, water-pumping stations and sewage treatment facilities. “Israel views restricting fuel and electricity to Gaza as a way to pressure Palestinian armed groups to stop their rocket and suicide attacks,” HRW’s Middle East director Joe Stork said in the statement.
“But the cuts are seriously affecting civilians who have nothing to do with these armed groups, and that violates a fundamental principle of the laws of war,” he said. “Indiscriminate Palestinian rocket and suicide bomb attacks against Israeli civilians constitute war crimes, but Israel’s attempts to suppress those attacks must not also violate international humanitarian law,” the group said.
Mohammed Mar’i adds from Ramallah:
As the European Union special envoy to the Middle East Marc Otte yesterday warned that the Israeli policies in the Gaza Strip are likely to turn the territory into Somalia, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak vowed harsher military action against the area if Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip continue to fire Qassam rockets at southern Israeli communities.
Otte said in an interview with the daily Haaretz “Israel’s tactics in the Gaza Strip did not work.” He added, “the blockade and the sanctions against the (Palestinian) population failed, and only strengthened Hamas and weakened (Prime Minister Salam) Fayyad and (President Mahmoud Abbas) Abu Mazen.”
The EU official added, “the implications of Israeli activity may be that Gaza becomes Somalia.” Otte is visiting Israel for talks with Barak and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni over the breached border of Gaza Strip along the Philadelphi Route (Salaheddin Route on the border between Gaza and Egypt). He held similar talks with senior Egyptian officials in Cairo this week.
He expressed concern that Israel is still uncertain how to deal with the new situation that has emerged along the border, and described some of the ideas the Egyptians are proposing for resolving the crisis. “There has been a significant change in the Egyptian appreciation of the severity of the problem at Rafah,” Otte told Haaretz.
Otte says that President Hosni Mubarak and Egypt’s Intelligence Chief, Omar Suleiman, are interested in a “package deal” that will bring about a more general settlement to the border situation between Israel and Egypt, and Israel and the Gaza Strip.
According to the Egyptian plan, there would be a renewed opening of the Rafah crossing along the lines of the previous agreement, intensive efforts to curb smuggling, and Israeli support for Fayyad’s plan to transfer control over the Karni and Sufa crossings to the Palestinian Authority.
The EU envoy says that Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip was central to the breach in the border by Hamas. “The pressure on the population did not cause them to throw Hamas to the sea,” he said.
“The blockade and its results did not harm Hamas, only made things more complex for Israel and Egypt and created unnecessary tension between the two states.”
Barak said “If the Qassam fire from Gaza continues, we will step up our operations and increase the strikes against the Palestinian side until the problem is resolved.”
Barak added during a visit to the Tze’elim army base in the southern Negev Desert yesterday “the operational activity brings results. This will not end today or tomorrow, but the combination of military operations and the sanctions on the Strip, along with the anticipated fortification of some of the communities, will eventually bring an end to Qassam attacks.”
In a related development, the International Quartet’s representative to the Middle East Tony Blair said that the “Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories must end as well as all military checkpoints be removed in order to establish real peace.”
Blair said in a press conference in West Bank city of Nablus he knows quite well the degree of suffering the Palestinians face due to Israeli occupation and military checkpoints. However, he said, more Palestinian efforts should be exerted in order to eliminate all Israeli pretexts to continue occupying Nablus, which is striving to become the economic capital of Palestine.
