Israeli says Gaza cuts will begin Sunday Sat Oct 27, 3:44 PM ET

JERUSALEM (AFP) - Israel's defence ministry announced it would begin cutting fuel supplies to the Gaza Strip from Sunday in reprisal for continued rocket attacks from the Palestinian territory.

"The reduction in fuel supplies will be felt from Sunday and we will carry out electricity cuts beginning in the coming days," Ronen Moshe, a spokesman for Defence Minister Ehud Barak, told AFP late Saturday.

Barak announced Thursday that Israel would start periodic electricity cuts and limit fuel deliveries to the Strip because of the continued firing of rockets by militants.

Moshe added that "juridical problems are still to be resolved" concerning the cuts, referring to possible legal action by Israeli human rights organisations which consider the sanctions collective punishment of civilians, contrary to international law.

(And indeed, they are.)

The Israeli military claims that since the Islamist Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip in mid-June, a thousand rockets and mortar shells have been fired at Israel, wounding dozens of people.

(The 'takeover' was a response to a failed Coup attempt by Israel and the United States, using corrupt elements within Fatah as proxies. The rockets are a response to increased Israeli aggression and the Collective Punishment of all who live in Gaza, the world's largest Concentration Camp. Israel's actions have resulted in hundreds of Palestinian deaths.)

Deputy Defence Minister Matan Vilnai said earlier Saturday that Israel planned to paralyse the infrastructure of the Gaza Strip in every possible way and separate itself completely from the Palestinian territory in the long term.

(That is a War Crime. What's really happening is that Israel is 'softening up' the strip for an invasion which has been planned since before the 'disengagement' that turned Gaza into a free-fire zone.)

"We want to separate ourselves from the Gaza Strip at the level of its infrastructure in every way possible," Vilnai told Israeli public radio.

Vilnai said the measures were not really because of the rocket firing "but really to achieve the separation of this territory, which was approved in principle two weeks ago by the Israeli government, and whose application had only been delayed for a simple legalistic check."

In September, the security cabinet decreed the Gaza Strip "a hostile entity." It has been controlled completely by Hamas since mid-June when the Islamist movement ousted security forces loyal to Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas and the Fatah party.

(Remember, everything Hitler did was "legal" too ...)

"Long term we want to separate ourselves from this territory, 100 percent," said Vilnai, adding that at the moment Israel was providing all the fuel that the Gaza Strip needed, as well as two-thirds of its electricity supplies.

(If this was true, then the Israelis would undertake final peace talks with the Palestinians, and recognize the resultant Palestinian State, instead of refusing to Negotiate and Compromise in the name of peace.)

"Currently, more than 100 lorries loaded with food and basic necessities coming from Israel enter the Gaza Strip each day to avoid a humanitarian crisis, but we also have to find an alternative solution at this level," Vilnai said.

Since the Hamas 'takeover' the Israelis have imposed a tight vice around the Gaza Strip, closing crossing points and only allowing through essential products.

Palestinians and human rights groups charge that the noose around the Strip amounts to collective punishment of civilians, contrary to international law.

The Israeli military claims that since the 'Islamists' took control, a thousand rockets and mortar shells have been fired at Israel, wounding dozens of people.

(Why is this sentence repeated, especially after, within the same story, we already read "Vilnai said the measures were not really because of the rocket firing"? The 'takeover' was a response to a failed Coup attempt by Israel and the United States, using corrupt elements within Fatah as proxies. The rockets are a response to increased Israeli aggression and the Collective Punishment of all who live in Gaza, the world's largest Concentration Camp. Israel's actions have resulted in hundreds of Palestinian deaths.)

The sanctions, the first of their kind since the Palestinian intifada or uprising began in late September 2000, can now proceed without further authorisation from the Israeli government.

Since the uprising started, a total of 5,906 people -- the vast majority of them Palestinians -- have been killed in Israeli-Palestinian violence, according to an AFP count.

news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20071027/wl_mideast_afp/mideastisraelgazasanctions

We all knew this was the endgame on the agenda of the psychopaths in charge of that tragic land.
Only three things will provide justice.
1 War crime trials
2 Reparations
3 Return
Tear down the walls and barricades. Free Palestine.

Kudos to the human rights groups, within Israel and outside, which focused the light of international public scrutiny on what Israel was attempting to do here.


Israel's legal advisor halts Gaza power cuts
Monday October 29, 2007

Israel's state prosecutor said Monday that planned punitive cuts in the electricity supply to the Gaza Strip cannot go ahead without taking full account of the possible humanitarian consequences.

(And, no doubt, the negative PR this would entail ...)

Menahem Mazouz said in a statement that "security chiefs must carry out supplementary examinations to take account of the humanitarian obligations before ordering electricity cuts."

A spokesman for Mazouz's office, Moshe Cohen, told AFP there was a need to "evaluate the risks that such measures could have on the civilian population."

Mazouz published his advice following close consultations with officials from the justice, defence and foreign ministries as well as the prime minister's office and the supreme court.

The supreme court has meanwhile given the government until Friday to justify the economic sanctions it is seeking to impose on the Palestinian territory, following legal action taken by 10 human rights groups.

Israel on Sunday began reducing the amount of fuel it supplies to the beleaguered Hamas-run coastal strip, just weeks after it declared the territory a "hostile entity" in response to frequent but rarely lethal rocket attacks.

(However, Israeli officials have since stated that this is not about the rockets - as defense analysts predict these measures would most likely increase their frequency - but about distancing Israel from Gaza's infrastructure. Considering Israel's long-held plans for a massive military assault on the Strip, this is most likely about softening up the region for reoccupation.)

Amid international criticism of the move as "collective punishment", it said it intended to impose electricity cuts within the next few days.

rawstory.com/news/afp/Israel_s_legal_advisor_halts_Gaza_p_10292007.html