“We keep saying people in Gaza are at rock bottom but they keep digging into the rock,” Karen Koning- Abu Zayd, head of the UN refugee agency UNRWA, said of Israel’s decision to start power cuts and reduce fuel supplies to Gaza in response to continued Qassam rocket attacks. Israel began cutting supplies on Sunday. The Supreme Court has given the state five days to answer a petition by human rights groups against the move, which follows the cabinet’s declaration of Gaza as a “hostile entity” last month. An Israeli soldier and two Palestinian militants were killed yesterday in Gaza as the Israeli military continued operations designed to curb the Qassam attacks.

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.

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It should also be noted that the upcoming Annapolis, Maryland conference in November, said to renew the peace process between Israel and Palestine, is excluding the democratically elected Hamas government, meaning it will only renew the ties between Israel and its puppet Fatah government. Syria said it would not attend if the conference did not address the Golan Heights, which Israel has also occupied since 1967.

Israel’s occupied territories were taken by war, which means they must be returned under international law. The point of these “peace talks” is only to sidestep international consensus, by pressuring the weaker side to release Israel of more and more of its responsibilities under international law. Israeli apologists will often talk of how “generous” Israel has been during such talks, but only in relation to the unreasonable demands it’s willing to give up, not in relation to what it is actually entitled to under international law.