Palestinian fuel distributors in the Gaza Strip agreed today to provide an emergency shipment to a UN aid
agency that cautioned it would have to halt food distribution to unless its trucks received petrol.
Mahmoud al-Khuzundar of the Association for Petrol Station Owners in the Gaza Strip said 50,000 litres of diesel would be delivered to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA).
UNRWA said yesterday it would be forced to suspend food distribution to hundreds of thousands of Palestinians today, citing a shortage in fuel supplies in the Hamas-controlled territory.
An Israeli official estimated storage tanks on the Palestinian side of the Nahal Oz crossing - the only border terminal used to pump fuel to the Gaza Strip - contained about a million litres of fuel. He accused Hamas of
preventing their distribution.
The petrol station owners' association has been on strike, refusing to collect the fuel near Nahal Oz in protest at Israel's cutbacks in supplies to the territory.
UNRWA said it uses 7,000 litres a day for its food distribution operations.
Israel tightened border restrictions, while pledging to allow humanitarian aid to continue to flow to the Gaza Strip, after Hamas Islamists violently took over the territory in June. Palestinian militants attacked the Nahal Oz fuel terminal two weeks ago, killing two Israeli civilians.
Minister for Foreign Affairs Dermot Ahern today called on Israel to guarantee fuel supplies for Gaza.
"It is becoming increasingly difficult for UNRWA to operate in these circumstances, which pose a very real threat to the health and welfare of families in Gaza," Mr Ahern said during at trip to Kenya.
"I have called unambiguously on Israel to end the blockade on Gaza. I understand fully Israel's security concerns. I condemn without reservation the rocket attacks from Gaza, and the recent attacks by Palestinian armed groups on the fuel depot. But isolating the people of Gaza is a form of collective punishment. It is not only unjust, it is politically counterproductive, and it will undermine the prospects for political progress in the Israeli – Palestinian negotiations."