Gaza Strip Becoming More Isolated

Palestinians wait Saturday to cross to the Israeli side at the Erez Crossing, in the northern Gaza Strip (AP photo by Wissam Nassar)

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Via aljazeera.com -

The split in Palestinian ranks between Hamas-run Gaza and Fatah-controlled West Bank has led to the total isolation of Gaza by the international community.

Right after President Mahmoud Abbas unilaterally sacked the Hamas-led and democratically elected government, the Quartet of the United States, European Union, United Nations and Russia issued a statement voicing support for the new Palestinian cabinet, led by new Prime Minister Salam Fayyad. "The Quartet recognized the necessity and legitimacy of [Abbas] decisions, taken under Palestinian law", it said.

Since then, the United States has announced that it would end its 15-month-old economic and political embargo of the Palestinian Authority. The European Union also promised to restore hundreds of millions of dollars in crucial aid to the Western-backed emergency cabinet in the occupied West Bank. Israel too said it would tighten its financial clampdown on the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, whose 1.5 million residents are aid-dependent. "No financial assistance can go to any entity or person with connections to the Hamas-run administration in Gaza,” a senior Israeli official told Reuters on Tuesday.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who is in Washington for talks with President George W. Bush on Tuesday, said the tax revenues Israel owes to the Palestinians would be released. Israeli officials estimated that $300 million to $400 million in Palestinian tax revenues would be transferred to Fayyad’s government, short of the $700 million sought by Abbas. Israeli sources say the rest of the money has been frozen by court order. "We will do it (transfers) in steps," said the senior Israeli official, adding that the plan is to bar Palestinian tax funds transferred to Abbas from reaching Gaza to run Hamas-led agencies and pay workers.

To further cripple Hamas, Israel is also considering banning private transfers to individuals in Gaza through Western Union and other financial institutions, a top Israeli official said.

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By opening the funding taps to the emergency government in the occupied West Bank, Israel and the United States showed their determination to completely isolate Hamas financially, diplomatically and militarily in the Gaza Strip, which the resistance group seized last week. The aim is to boost President Abbas and Fatah (the main element in the PLO and once the arch-enemy of Israel but now seen as its negotiating partner) and push Hamas into a corner.

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Israel, which controls Gaza's airspace, its seacoast and a land border that runs for 32 miles, claims that it won't let a humanitarian crisis develop in the coastal strip, but it only allows some food and some fuel to reach Gazans, nothing more. If Gaza was labelled the world's biggest prison, the rules now amount to a lockdown.

Palestinians who want to leave Gaza are now trapped on the Gaza-Israel border, where Israeli occupation forces are pushing them back. Things got worse on Monday when Israeli soldiers killed one Palestinian and wounded dozens others near the Erez crossing between Israel and Gaza. The Palestinians who succeeded to escape Gaza on Monday got out by ambulance, correspondents say.

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The Gulf Times has an more detailed article about the hard times faced by those attempting to escape the Gaza Strip.

Israel wants to transfer Palestinian refugees who are waiting to leave Gaza at the Erez crossing to Egyptian territory, but Egyptian sources say Cairo is reluctant to accept them.

The media in Israel is reporting that one Palestinian was killed yesterday evening and at least 10 others were injured when a gunman attacked a group of Palestinian civilians waiting for permission to cross into Israel near the Erez Crossing. Responsibility for the attack was later claimed by the Popular Resistance Committees, a grassroots paramilitary organization. It is still unclear what the aim was.