Israel again stops aid supplies to Gaza

ISRAEL: Israel on Thursday again prevented the delivery of humanitarian aid to the impoverished Gaza Strip in response to a rocket attack by Palestinian militants.

The rocket hit an empty field in southern Israel and caused no casualties or damage, police said.

Following the rocket attack, Defence Minister Ehud Barak reversed a decision to allow the delivery of humanitarian aid on Thursday, his office said.

Israel allowed dozens truckloads of humanitarian and other basic goods into Gaza on Wednesday, which was only the third day since November 4 that Israel had opened the border to food deliveries.

Israeli authorities responded to a flare-up in violence at the beginning of the month by further tightening a crippling blockade imposed after the Islamist Hamas movement seized power in Gaza in June 2007.

Aid agencies have expressed fears the closures will lead to a further worsening of the humanitarian situation in the overcrowded, aid-dependent sliver of land.

JERUSALEM, Friday, AFP