MIDDLE EAST:Israeli leaders announced last night they would begin allowing some diesel and medical supplies into Gaza today, but threatened that if rocket attacks into Israel escalated again, the blockade imposed on the Hamas-controlled strip in recent days would be tightened, writes Peter Hirschbergin Jerusalem.
The easing of the blockade followed not only a dramatic drop in rocket attacks over the last 48 hours - down to five rockets in the last two days as opposed to more than 50 in the 48 hours before that - but also growing international pressure on Israel to ease the sanctions.
UN aid agencies said food aid to hundreds of thousands of Gaza residents would have to be suspended within a few days.
Earlier yesterday Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert warned that if militants kept firing rockets at towns in southern Israel, then the 1.5 million residents of Gaza would not enjoy a "pleasant and comfortable life".
Mr Olmert told Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak and European leaders who called to express concern over the situation in Gaza that he would not allow a humanitarian crisis to develop there. But he broadcast a tough message when talking to members of his ruling Kadima party: "As far as I'm concerned, Gaza residents will walk, without gas for their cars, because they have a murderous, terrorist regime that doesn't let people in southern Israel live in peace."
The main power plant in Gaza stopped operating on Sunday night, leaving Gaza city in darkness. With Israel stopping fuel supplies, bakeries and petrol stations were closed and Palestinian officials warned that fuel for hospital generators would soon run out. "We have the choice to either cut electricity on babies in the maternity ward or heart surgery patients or stop operating rooms," said one health ministry official.
Israeli defence officials, however, said electricity to the strip had not been stopped, that Hamas had intentionally fabricated the crisis in a bid to win international support and that it could end it by renewing the electricity supply. Women and children, carrying candles in the Gaza darkness, have held demonstrations in the last two days.
"We didn't touch a millimetre of cable," insisted Israel's deputy defence minister Matan Vilnai. "That's a fact."
Israel supplies Gaza with more than 70 per cent of its power. The remainder is supplied by Egypt and by a local Gaza plant. Israel has said it has ceased supplying the fuel to that plant.
A UN aid agency spokesman said yesterday that the fuel shortage could lead to food handouts being suspended within a few days. "Because of a shortage of nylon for plastic bags and fuel for vehicles and generators, on Wednesday or Thursday we are going to have to suspend our food distribution programme to 860,000 people in Gaza if the present situation continues," said Christopher Gunness, spokesman for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency.
Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas has called on Israel to lift the blockade, but he has also faced calls from some lawmakers to cease peace negotiations with Israel that were renewed last month, if the sanctions continue.