Barak warns of impending large-scale operation in the Gaza Strip
By Yuval Yoaz and Shlomo Shamir, Haaretz
Defense Minister Ehud Barak said Tuesday that a large-scale Israel Defense Forces operation against Palestinian rocket squads was drawing near.
Barak has made the threat before, but this is the first time he's repeated it since Israel started reducing fuel supplies to Gaza this week in another tactic to pressure militants to halt their rocket fire into southern Israel.
"Every day that passes brings us closer to a broad operation in Gaza," Barak told Army Radio.
"We are not happy to do it, we're not rushing to do it, and we'll be happy if circumstances succeed in preventing it," he said. "But the time is approaching when we'll have to undertake a broad operation in Gaza."
Attorney General Menachem Mazuz on Monday prohibited the cutting off of electricity to parts of the Gaza Strip for the time being, after Israel began on Sunday to curb fuel supplies to Gaza.
Mazuz held a hearing on the topic in his office Monday after reading the Military Advocate General's response to the defense establishment's plan to sever economic ties with Gaza and halt gas and power supplies.
At the conclusion of the hearing, Mazuz decided that it is Israel's right to sever economic and commercial ties with the Strip, which Jerusalem last month declared a
"hostile territory". Mazuz therefore approved the implementation of punitive measures, pending the approval of the cabinet.
However, in regard to halting the electricity supply, the attorney general said that further consideration would be required before such a measure could be implemented without violating the prime minister's promise last week "not to cause a humanitarian crisis" in the Gaza Strip.
The hearing was regarded as "urgent" after the High Court of Justice on Sunday ordered the state to respond within five days to a petition submitted by dozens of human rights groups requesting that Israel halt its punitive measures against Gaza.
The rights groups said that the decision to cut off vital power supplies is illegal, and could likely harm the innocent civilian population in Gaza. The High Court rejected the petition, but gave the state five days to respond.
The Monday hearing was attended by senior Justice Ministry officials, officials from the High Court of Justice, the Military Advocate General and the legal teams of the Defense Ministry, Foreign Ministry and the Prime Minister's Office.
Ban urges end to Qassams, urges no Israeli punitive measures
United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Monday called on Gaza militants to stop the attacks against Israel, but also asked Israel not to take punitive measures that would hurt the civilian population.
"The secretary-general reiterates his call for the cessation of indiscriminate rocket attacks by Palestinian militants targeting Israel and strongly condemns these actions," said UN spokesperson Michelle Montas.
"However, he also believes strongly that punitive measures taken by Israel, which will harm the well-being of the entire population of the Gaza Strip, are unacceptable," she said.
Further tightening its closure of the Strip, Israel also closed the Sufa border crossing with southern Gaza, one of two crossings that had remained open during the past months for the passage of humanitarian aid.
The only outlet now remaining open to humanitarian aid is the southern-most Kerem Shalom crossing, a military spokeswoman said.
While European Commissioner for External Affairs Benita Ferrero-Waldner said in Jerusalem she was "concerned" over the tougher sanctions and warned against "collective punishment", the United Nations World Food Program (WFP) said closing the crossing enhanced the "vulnerability" of Gaza's 1.5 million inhabitants, many of whom rely on food hand-outs.
Riyad Malki, the spokesman for the Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud
Abbas-appointed "caretaker" government in the West Bank, called the sanctions "unacceptable," but denied Abbas was suspending his talks with Israel over them.
Israel's defense establishment has expressed plans to cut electricity by 1 per cent - or 15 minutes each day - to those areas in the Strip from where the rockets are fired, a Defense Ministry spokesman said.
The electricity cut would have little impact and was meant mainly as a "signal" to the radical Islamic Hamas movement ruling the Strip, said Shlomo Dror, the spokesman for the Defense Ministry body charged with coordinating government policy with the military.
Israel began Sunday reducing its weekly supply of vital gasoline to Gaza by 15 percent and of diesel by 13 percent. But, Dror said, Israel would not touch the supply of crude diesel to Gaza's main power plant, which used up some 1.74 litres a week.
"We are sending a signal to the Palestinians. We tell them that the tendency is to go to a disengagement," Dror said.
A WFP spokeswoman in Jerusalem, Kirstie Campbell, acknowledged both Kerem Shalom and Sufa border crossings "have been under sustained mortar and rocket attacks from Palestinian militants," but warned that the remaining crossing of Kerem Shalom lacked the capacity to meet Gaza's daily needs of basic foods. While Sufa had the capacity to let through about 100 trucks a day, Kerem Shalom had about half that, she said.
