Israel will not start cutting fuel supplies to the Gaza Strip until later this week at the earliest, officials said, delaying an earlier threat to begin from Sunday. According to the AFP, a senior government official said any cuts would still need to be approved by the government and would not begin for another few days.
"The cuts will probably start later this week and still require the green light from the government" the official told AFP. Israel's defence ministry had earlier threatened to start cutting supplies from Sunday in retaliation for rocket fire from Gaza Strip, but an official responsible for the Palestinian territories said he had not yet received orders to proceed. "When we receive orders from the political leadership we will apply them but so far that's not the case," Shlomo Dror, top Israeli coordinator for the Palestinian territories, told AFP.
The Israeli military says that since the Islamist Hamas movement seized control of the Gaza Strip in mid-June, some 1,000 rockets and mortar rounds have been fired at Israel, wounding dozens of people.
On Sunday, Hamas said that any cuts in the supply of fuel and electricity would constitute a "war crime" against residents of the Gaza Strip. Any cuts would "represent a war crime and a direct violation of international law," Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri told AFP. "These sanctions are collective punishment against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip and without a doubt will lead to a further deterioration of our situation," he said.
"But in the end Hamas and the Palestinian people will not acquiesce in our positions," he added.
