Carter Center Urges Israel To Maintain Gaza Energy Supplies

24 October 2007 -- The Carter Center urges the government of Israel to cease consideration of a proposal to cut energy supplies in Gaza. On Sept. 19, 2007, Israel threatened to declare the Gaza Strip a "hostile territory" and cut off provision of essential services such as electricity and fuel to the civilian population as retaliation for rocket attacks being launched from the territory. The Associated Press today reported that, according to anonymous sources, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak will announce that Israel will carry out the plan beginning tomorrow.

The Carter Center sees this proposal as the collective punishment of 1.4 million people for the actions of a few. The Center earlier criticized this policy in a Sept. 21 statement, asserting that "such an action would defy Israel's obligations toward the civilian population under international humanitarian and human rights laws, and urges Israel to rescind this decision."

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"The people of Gaza have been reduced to conditions of poverty, malnutrition, and imprisonment that should be considered totally unacceptable by the civilized world," said Carter Center Field Office Director Scott Custer in the Sept. 21 statement. "The deliberate Israeli policy to reduce the Palestinians to penury does not meet the standards required by international humanitarian and human rights law of Israel as an occupying power."

Source: Carter Center