MIDDLE EAST: Palestinians fear a large-scale Israeli incursion will create a new refugee problem in the strip, writes Michael Jansen in Gaza
Israel's incursion into northern Gaza yesterday set alarm bells ringing in the UN agency which cares for the strip's one million refugees.
A spokesman for the Gaza district office, Mr Christer Nordahl, said that if Israel carries out a large-scale incursion or occupies the closely settled Beit Hannoun area in the north, as many as 25,000 people could be driven from their homes.
"The Israelis have been planning and talking about moving into Beit Hannoun, so they may do what they promised."
This is the location from which Palestinian militants have been firing rockets into Sderot and other Israeli towns across the frontier. Beit Hannoun is not connected with the soldier captured by Palestinian fighters more than a week ago.
"So far the Israelis have moved only a few hundred metres inside Gaza in order to deny the area to Palestinian fighters," Mr Nordahl said,
This incursion may, however, last for some time. According to another source, the Israelis have established two observation posts on the roofs of homes in al-Nada Towers, a housing project for low-income people. This is standard practice whenever Israel prepares to assert its control over territory.
UN Relief and Works Agency's (UNRWA) operations throughout the Strip are "normal" in spite of Israel's incursions in the north and the south near Khan Yunis. However, Mr Nordhal said: "a few families from the eastern sector may have left" because of the threat of a large-scale Israeli incursion designed to rescue the soldier.
UNRWA has expanded its role to provide 23,000 families with food aid because wage earners employed by the Palestinian Authority have not received their pay for the past four months.
Although Israel opened the Karni crossing for three hours on Sunday to allow flour and other essential foodstuffs into the Strip and petrol and diesel were imported in tankers from Nahal Oz, the amounts were very limited.
Salah Sakka, a member of the Gaza municipality, said the food and fuel crisis continues. Twenty-two thousand litres of the fuel was commandeered by the Red Cross to provide a strategic reserve to run ambulances, fire trucks, generators in hospitals, and water and sewage pumps.
"The food that came in is enough for one day," stated Mr Sakka, who attended yesterday's emergency meeting convened by the municipality and aid agencies. "Even if fuel is available, all the municipalities in Gaza cannot pay for it," he said.
The Palestinian Authority is bankrupt due to the suspension of funding by donor states, particularly those in Europe which provided the assistance which covered the authority's operating costs.
"The Gaza municipality, which serves 600,000 people, cannot get fuel to operate its sewage plant. The mayor told us that unless this problem is solved, Gaza will have to pump raw sewage into the sea, polluting the coast just at the time people go to the beach to escape the heat and humidity," Mr Sakka said.
"The Gaza municipality cannot pay a six million shekels [ €1.06 million] electricity bill because customers owe nine million shekels [ €1.6 million]."
Traffic remains light in Gaza's sweltering streets. Most of the vehicles circulating are taxis which travel along specific routes and sell single seats to customers.
"People are not going out," stated a businessman who shut his consulting office because he has no work. "They don't want to leave their homes except for necessary errands."
During late afternoon, a lorry-load of youths beating drums and waving flags passed along Omar Mukhtar, Gaza City's main street following a noisy display of Israeli air power - without sonic booms this time - in the skies over Gaza.
The youths were trying to keep up public spirits at this time of national crisis. Most Gazans back the demands of the men holding the Israeli soldier and oppose efforts to release him without exacting a price in Palestinian prisoners.
Gazans are are sharply critical of Europe, in particular, for backing Israel's insistence on the unconditional surrender of the corporal.
There is a certain amount of confusion about the three groups who hold him and their objectives. The armed factions which claim the operation are: the military wing of Hamas, the Palestinian Resistance Committees, and an unknown group called the Army of Islam, which may have emerged recently.
These groups seem to be better organised and equipped than others, observed the businessman.
"Israel should not take on such men, they are very tough, they have had no chance to live nicely or calmly, they will kill him without any qualms."
But there is some suspicion that they did not plan to snatch an Israeli soldier and now they do not know what to do with him, or the major confrontation his capture has created.