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Abbas Appoints Crisis Cabinet
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Although the Bush administration and the European Union consider Hamas a terrorist organization, both have called for a continuation of humanitarian aid to Gaza despite new difficulties in delivering it now that Hamas monitors the border crossings, which have remained closed throughout the recent fighting. Eight in 10 Gaza residents rely on U.N. agencies for food assistance.
However, Israeli officials said Sunday that Gaza should be sealed off further.
"We should simply increase the isolation of Gaza from Judea and Samaria," Infrastructure Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer told Israel's Army Radio, using the biblical terms for the West Bank. "We must close them off totally. We must stop all the aid, all the help. I want to stop everything until we understand what is going on there."
The Israeli company that supplies fuel to Gaza, Dor Alon, suspended deliveries to the strip Sunday, citing an inability to coordinate with Hamas officials on the other side of the crossings and a lack of payment. The company said it would continue supplying fuel needed to run Gaza's electricity plant, which the Palestinian Authority has agreed to continue paying for.
Shlomo Dror, spokesman for Israel's coordinator of government activities in the territories, said, "In our view, this fuel is part of the humanitarian assistance we must provide." But he said he believed the Palestinian Authority, whose leadership is now in the West Bank, does not want to pay for fuel for Gaza in order to pressure Hamas.
"In a way, we think they are trying to cause a humanitarian crisis," Dror said.
A possible Israeli move against Hamas -- a Sunni Muslim movement that during the financial aid embargo of the Palestinian Authority over the past 18 months has accepted millions of dollars from Iran's Shiite government -- gained support Sunday from a variety of quarters.
Binyamin Netanyahu, head of the opposition Likud Party, told Army Radio that "Israel will not be able to accept the existence and strengthening of an Iranian base at the periphery of Tel Aviv over time."
"I would increase the diplomatic isolation, as well as diplomatic coordination with Egypt and Jordan, with the help of the U.S., in order to in the end topple the Hamas regime," Netanyahu said.
