by Shlomo Cesana, Nitzi Yaakov, News Agencies and Israel Hayom Staff
The issue of electricity in Gaza "is an internal Palestinian dispute," says PM Netanyahu
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
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Photo credit: Marc Israel Selem  |
Israel has no desire for an altercation with
Hamas, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday, in the wake of
a cabinet decision this week to reduce the power supply to Gaza.
The cabinet made the decision after the
Palestinian Authority announced it would stop paying Hamas' monthly
electricity bill. Hamas warned on Monday that the power cuts would "lead to an explosion."
"The Israeli occupation's decision to reduce
electricity to the Gaza Strip at the behest of PA President Mahmoud
Abbas is catastrophic and dangerous," Hamas spokesman Abdel Latif
al-Qanou said in an official statement. "It will hasten the
deterioration of the situation and its explosion in the strip."
Netanyahu said, "The issue of electricity in
Gaza is a dispute between the Palestinian Authority and Hamas. Hamas is
demanding that the PA pay for the electricity, and the Palestinian
Authority is refusing to pay. It is an internal Palestinian dispute.
"In any case, I want to make it clear that
Israel has no interest in an escalation [with Hamas], and any other
speculation is wrong. But we have an interest in security, and our
policy is clear on the subject of security and it won't change."
Meanwhile, the father of Lt. Hadar Goldin, who
was killed in Operation Protective Edge in 2014 and whose body is still
being held by Hamas, called on Israel to stop providing Gaza with
electricity until the remains of his son and those of Staff Sgt. Oron
Shaul, also killed in the fighting, are returned to Israel.
"For three years now, the family has asked the
government to apply pressure, to make the other side understand that
what they have is a burden rather than an asset," Simcha Goldin said in a
radio interview Tuesday.
Goldin attacked Netanyahu, saying that "the
approach to Gaza needs to hinge on the return home of the fallen
soldiers. The prime minister, to my sorrow, has gone in a different
direction."
Shlomo Cesana, Nitzi Yaakov, News Agencies and Israel Hayom Staff
Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=43109
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