Israel's decision to cut power in Gaza is illegal, says UN

Israel's decision to cut power to the Gaza Strip is illegal says the UN's top official in Gaza and the isolation of Hamas has only strengthened extremism and driven non- affiliated residents who can flee to do so.

The UNRWA chief, who will meet Douglas Alexander, Secretary of State for International Development and other ministers in London today, said: "I can understand why from the Israeli point of view people may think we need a stronger reaction to the Qassams [and] nothing has worked so far. But I don't see how you can want to punish people, all of them in Gaza, which means most of them who are not behind these activities, in the way you are doing now."

In an interview, Ms Koning-Abu Zayd said: "Most people, even in some of the refugee camps, live in high-rise apartments in Gaza and if you don't have electricity, you don't have water, you probably don't have food and if you're older or sick in any way you probably can't climb up and down all those stairs." A cut in fuel would have a "very serious" effect on civilian movement.

Collective punishment is illegal under international law, and yet that is blatantly what the Israelis are about to engage in. They are about to punish the ordinary citizens of Gaza for actions that they had nothing to do with.

Where is the international outcry over this blatant violation of international law? Why is the country responsible for the longest illegal occupation in modern history allowed to carry out such actions with impunity?

Nor is there any indication that this illegal act will result in an uprising against Hamas, which is supposed to be the point of this act of barbarity. Indeed, there is every indication that acts like this will only make things worse.

Ms Koning-Abu Zayd cast doubt on the idea that the Israeli squeeze on Gaza, including phased cuts in power – starting with 15 minutes per hour in towns such as Beit Hanoun, from which rockets have been frequently launched – would trigger an effective revolt against militants.

"I don't think it's working myself," she said, adding she did not think surveys showing a fall in support for Hamas were "very significant". She said: "The ones that do support them support them even more strongly and because things are getting worse the ones that were talking about compromise and moderation and working together are discredited so you know many people become more extreme."

The truth is that Europe especially appears to take it's lead on this crisis from the Americans and that, under Bush's leadership, the Israelis have been actively encouraged to violate international law in the knowledge that the US will use her veto to ensure that no criticism of the Israelis is ever allowed to reach the floor of the UN.

The Israeli cabinet minister Benjamin Ben Eliezer suggested yesterday that the cuts were the only alternative to moving "four divisions" into Gaza. But Ms Koning-Abu Zayd said: "When we first heard these things I kept saying they won't do this because it's against international law."

Ms Koning-Abu Zayd, the longest serving UN official in Gaza, also made some of the strongest criticisms yet by a UN official of the Israeli and international community's boycott of Hamas since March 2006, which she said had strengthened hardline extremists in the faction.

She hoped that the planned Annapolis conference would renew a peace process and said UNRWA had a "very simple message" that refugees should be on the agenda. But it was a "big negative" that Hamas would not be taking part, and that "at some moment" they would have to be brought into the process.

Since Hamas won the elections two months earlier, "We were saying ... you had to deal with whoever is elected democratically, fairly, justly and that if you didn't, and history seemed to us to prove this, you drive people into becoming more extreme."

What chance do any of us have of ever combating extremism amongst the Palestinians? The normal way that one goes about this is to encourage former terrorist groups to give up the bullet and to legitimise themselves by entering the political process.

Hamas did so and successfully and fairly won the election. Since then it is, disgracefully, the US, the EU and the Israelis who have sought to undermine the democratic process and bring down the government which the Palestinians chose as their democratic representatives.

And in order to further reduce support for Hamas we now find Israel planning a blatant violation of international law, and the world - once again - silent as they do so.

This is disgraceful. Simply bloody disgraceful. And it is a further example of why US moral authority has shrunk under Bush's leadership.

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