JERUSALEM (AFP) — Israel on Tuesday reopened the terminal that handles all fuel supplies to Gaza to allow delivery of diesel to the Palestinian territ

JERUSALEM (AFP) — Israel on Tuesday reopened the terminal that handles all fuel supplies to Gaza to allow delivery of diesel to the Palestinian territory's sole power plant one day after it shuddered to a halt.

A UN agency, meanwhile, warned it will have to suspend food distribution on which a majority of Gaza's 1.5 million population depends unless Israel also allows in vital foodstuffs.

The Nahal Oz terminal used for oil deliveries "opened at 8:30 am (0630 GMT) for the transfer of the diesel for the power station," said military spokesman Peter Lerner.

An official of the Palestinian energy authority in Gaza confirmed that Israel resumed the fuel shipments and said the power plant should restart later in the day.

The plant had ground to a halt on Monday evening after Israel stopped the flow of fuel to the Gaza Strip in response to rocket fire by Palestinian militants in the besieged enclave.

Late on Monday, Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak said "minimal quantities" of fuel would be sent to Gaza, at the request of Mideast envoy Tony Blair, who represents the Middle East diplomatic Quartet made up of the European Union, Russia, the United Nations and United States.

"We will be reassessing the situation during the day, and of course if rockets continue to be fired during the day we will take the necessary steps for tomorrow," Lerner said.

Other border crossings with Gaza remained closed.

Israel imposed a blockade of Gaza after the Islamist Hamas movement seized power there in June 2007.

A ceasefire in and around the territory went into effect on June 19, but militants have conducted sporadic rocket and mortar attacks to which Israel has responded by tightening the territory's closure.

Chris Gunness, a spokesman for the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), warned that food distribution in the territory would have to be suspended after Thursday unless the closures were eased.

"Food distribution to 750,000 people will be suspended at close of business on Thursday unless we can on an urgent basis get into the Gaza Strip wheat, powdered milk, luncheon meat and oil," he said.

Gunness said that preventing vital supplies from entering Gaza "is a further illustration of the barbarity of this inhuman blockade."

"This is not just the physical punishment of a whole community it is also a mental punishment to have people who need to feed their families living on a hand-to-mouth basis," he said.

Meanwhile, a boat carrying European politicians and pro-Palestinian activists returned to Cyprus from Gaza on Tuesday, the third such voyage in as many months to defy the Israeli blockade which extends to the territory's maritime borders.

"People with the utmost dignity are coping with mounting deprivation from all sides," British MP Clare Short, a former cabinet minister for international development, told AFP upon returning from the three-day Gaza trip.

"It's cruelty, collective punishment, illegal, thoroughly undemocratic and a failure of the EU," said Short, one of the 22 passengers aboard The Dignity.

Source: afp.google.com