UN agency says it has run out of Gaza food supplies

A United Nations aid agency said yesterday it had run out of food supplies for 750,000 Palestinians in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip after Israel blocked deliveries by the world body.

Short of fuel, Palestinian officials shut down Gaza's sole power plant as Israel kept commercial crossings with the coastal territory closed for a 10th day.

Israel blamed the closure and the partial blackouts in Gaza City on cross-border rocket attacks by Palestinian militants.

"We have run out this evening and unless the crossing points open... we won't be able to get that food into Gaza," said John Ging, a top official with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA).

Mr Ging called the economic situation in Gaza "a disaster."

UNRWA distributed food parcels to Gaza residents yesterday but officials said further deliveries had been suspended because of a shortage of supplies.

Israel had initially said yesterday it would allow the delivery of some 30 trucks of food and other humanitarian goods into the enclave, where a flare-up in cross-border fighting threatens a five-month-old truce along the Israel-Gaza frontier.

Israel also held up deliveries of European Union-funded fuel for the power plant, which generates about a third of the electricity consumed by Gazans. The rest comes from Israel, which was continuing supply, and Egypt.

Some 1.5 million people live in the Gaza Strip, where residents said food remained available but certain items were in short supply. Some 750,000 Gaza residents, most living in refugee camps, depend on UNRWA food supplies.

"We're in danger of going back to the situation prior to the calm," said Richard Miron, spokesman for the UN's envoy to the Middle East peace process.

UNRWA head Karen AbuZayd said in an interview in Brussels she was worried Israel was narrowing the criteria for humanitarian aid and that certain items, including some school supplies, would be excluded from future shipments.

Palestinian militants fired several rockets at southern Israel earlier yesterday, causing no casualties, the Israeli army said. The salvoes came a day after soldiers killed four Hamas gunmen during a raid into the Gaza Strip.

Israel says it remains committed to the Egyptian-brokered ceasefire, which went into effect on June 19.

"Without a doubt, it is faltering, but it isn't over," Israeli Deputy Defence Minister Matan Vilnai told Israel Radio.

Israel has not allowed the UN and other agencies to bring supplies into the Gaza Strip since November 4, when its troops raided the territory to destroy what the army described as a tunnel built by militants to kidnap Israeli soldiers.