Israel resumed fuel supplies to the Gaza Strip’s main power plant Tuesday, easing a five-day blockade that had plunged much of the Hamas-ruled territory into darkness and touched off international protests.
The U.S. warned Israel not to add to the hardship for ordinary Palestinians but blamed the problem on Gaza's Islamic Hamas rulers. Israel imposed the siege in response to increasing rocket attacks on its border communities by Gaza militants.
Despite the easing of the closure, Palestinian militants fired 19 rockets toward Israel on Tuesday, the military said, up from just two on Monday.
The lights were back on in most of Gaza City by Tuesday afternoon after a blackout that lasted almost two days.
The shipment Tuesday included at least three days’ worth of European Union-funded fuel for the generating plant, which shut down on Sunday after Israel sealed border crossings in what it termed a response to Palestinian cross-border rocket salvoes.
The Defense Ministry ruled late Tuesday that 60,000 gallons of diesel fuel will be transferred into Gaza daily, but the crossings will remain closed to other goods and people until further notice.
“Our approach now is to assess what is acutely lacking, and permit imports on that basis,” Israeli Defense Ministry spokesman Shlomo Dror said.
Early Wednesday, masked Palestinian gunmen detonated explosives next to the border wall separating Gaza and Egypt causing several holes in the iron barrier, witnesses said.
Dozens of residents gathered at the border waiting to cross as Hamas forces arrived. On the other side, Egypt deployed troops to block any infiltration attempts from Gaza.
Closed bakeries and candlelight
Pictures of blacked-out Gaza City, children marching mournfully with candles and people lining up at closed bakeries evoked urgent appeals from governments, aid agencies and the U.N. for an end to the closure, though Israel maintained all along that Hamas created an artificial crisis.
The European Union and international agencies denounced the Israeli closure as illegal “collective punishment” against Gaza’s 1.5 million residents, many of whom depend on foreign aid. Gazans stockpiled food and medical officials.
Israel denied there was a humanitarian crisis in Gaza and said its measures were a justified reaction to rocket and mortar attacks, some of which were carried out by Hamas.
The decision to allow in emergency supplies, Israeli officials said, followed a decline in the number of salvoes.
“We have learned that Hamas controls the rocket fire. It has to be clear to the residents of the strip that it is Hamas' conduct that harms them, not Israel’s,” Dror said.
The Gaza power plant ordinarily provides only 30 percent of the territory’s electricity, but its closure affected a far greater proportion of the population because of the way the power grid system works. The bulk of Gaza’s electricity, which comes from Israel and Egypt over cables, was not cut off, Israel said.
‘Using us for fuel’
Throughout the closure hospitals kept running on generators. But most bakeries shut down, and long lines formed at those that were open. A shipment of cooking gas sent in by Israel on Tuesday sold out in an hour.
Gaza City baker Haj Salman, 68, who uses wood to run his oven, did a booming business. Customers lined up to have homemade bread dough baked in his oven.
One of those waiting for his bread was 22-year-old Sami Othman, whose father, a taxi driver, has been idled by the fuel shortage. Othman said he felt the people of Gaza were being squeezed by the confrontation between Hamas and the rival Fatah.
"They are using us for fuel for their internal fighting and political conflicts," he said.
Hamas refuses to give up its fight against Israel and opposes peace moves by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, whose administration condemned the Israeli closure as harmful to diplomacy.
