On Sunday 28 October 2007 Israel announced new reductions of fuel and other goods supplies into Gaza.
This measure represents collective punishment of the population.
The Gaza Strip already experiences shortages in foodstuffs, medicines, electricity and fuel due to the closure, which has been tightened since mid-June 2007.
The Israeli escalation has taken an unprecedented junction since Gaza was declared an "enemy territory" on 19 September 2007.
As a consequence, the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) has increased the restrictions imposed on the movement of people from and into the Gaza Strip.
Arrangements for students' travel from Gaza via Erez-Al Ouja Crossings have been cancelled.
Today, Israel announced it would further reduce fuel supplies it allows into the Strip.
According to the information available to Al Mezan, before this decision the quantities of fuel allowed to enter into the Strip were 300,000 to 350,000 liters of fuel for the electricity plant, 300,000 to 350,000 liters of diesel, 70,000 to 80,000 liters benzene, and 200,000 to 240,000 tons cooking gas.
These quantities fall short of meeting the daily needs in Gaza, which, for example, needs about 500,000 liters of diesel per day if there is no disruption of electricity supplies.
Should Israel reduce electricity supply, Gaza will need another 100,000 liters as health, water and sanitation facilities will be forced to use electric generators that use diesel.
It is foreseen that any reduction of fuel supply to Gaza will contribute to rapid deterioration of the humanitarian situation in the Strip.
Reduction of electricity supply will deepen the crisis and affect all the aspects of the Gazans' life, given its direct impacts on the provision of health, water, sanitation and other household services.
IOF's refusal to allow the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) to keep fuel storage by allowing amounts that exceed Gaza's daily consumption renders Gaza highly vulnerable to any reductions.
In addition to the closure measures, IOF has escalated its acts of killing and its military incursions inside the Gaza Strip.
Last week, IOF killed 13 Palestinians, including one in an extra-judicial assassination operation and an old patient who died at Erez Crossing as a result of delaying his access to an Israel hospital for treatment.
Fourteen others were also injured 14 others during the week.
IOF carried out five incursions and detained 20 Palestinians.
According to Al Mezan's documentation, IOF launched aerial attacks on Gaza eight times during the same week.
Al Mezan Center for Human Rights condemns the Israeli military escalation against civilians.
It asserts that the reduction of fuel and electricity supplies Gaza represents a flagrant violation of the rules of the International Humanitarian Law; particularly the Fourth Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War and its Additional Protocol I.
The recent Israeli measures represent a form of collective punishment that seriously damage indispensable services and deprive Gazans from them, and cannot be justified under any circumstances.
The intensifying of the closure imposed on the Gaza Strip and the reduction of fuel, food and medicines supplies will lead to full suspension of the small portion left of industrial and commercial activities.
This should be seen within the context of a series of collective punishment measures imposed by Israel against Gaza's population, which has become aid-dependant, and suffers unprecedented rates of poverty and unemployment and poverty.
Therefore, Al Mezan calls on that the international community, particularly the High Contracting Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention, to uphold its moral and legal responsibilities and intervene to immediately stop the Israeli grave breaches of the Convention and provide protection for civilians.
Under rapidly increasing punitive measures Gaza faces the threat of imminent worsening of the humanitarian crisis it lives.
Therefore, these measures must not be allowed to materialize.
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