by Saed Bannoura - Oct 24, 2007In retaliation for the eighteen homemade shells fired Tuesday night by Palestinian resistance fighters toward Israel, which were themselves in retaliation for the Israeli assassination of a Palestinian resistance leader, Israeli authorities have threatened to cut power to the Gaza Strip.
This type of 'collective punishment’ against the entire population of 1.3 million Palestinians in Gaza is a violation of international law, and such actions carried out by Israel in the past have been widely condemned by international human rights groups.
The Israeli Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilnai told Israeli Army Radio on Wednesday, "We plan to dramatically reduce the two-thirds of power that is supplied by Israel, which will take several weeks."
The Palestinians living inside Gaza now depend on the Israeli occupiers to supply their electricity, since Israel bombed their two main power plants in 2006. During the period that Gaza was without electricity following the power plant bombing, patients in hospitals died when their life support was cut off, children and families suffered from extreme cold and all work and industry came to a complete standstill for months.
The humanitarian crisis in Gaza was exacerbated by the blackout, and all of Gaza’s 1.3 million residents were severely and negatively impacted.
Israel’s proposal to repeat the same scenario, in which all of Gaza is thrust into darkness in order to punish the population for the actions of a small group of resistance fighters, has been widely criticized by Palestinian leaders. But human rights groups worldwide have remained largely silent.
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