Olmert warns of confrontation

2008-11-11 22:11

Jerusalem - Outgoing Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert warned on Tuesday of a looming confrontation with the Islamist Hamas movement which controls the Gaza Strip.

"I have no doubt that the situation between us and Hamas is an unavoidable pre-confrontation situation," Olmert said while touring the military headquarters responsible for the Gaza region.

"It's only a question of time and not a question of if," his office quoted him as saying on the tour.

"We are not eager for it but we are not afraid either and if there is a need to fight Hamas we will do so. In any event we should be alert and prepared."

Israel imposed a blockade of Gaza after Hamas seized control of the territory from forces loyal to Western-backed Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas in June last year.

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.

On Tuesday Israel 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.

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

Olmert presented his resignation as premier amid persistent corruption allegations in September but will remain at the head of a caretaker government until after snap parliamentary elections in February.

- AFP