By Nidal al-Mughrabi
GAZA (Reuters) - Two major Gaza universities suspendedclasses on Tuesday, saying a fuel crisis in theHamas-controlled territory was making it difficult for studentsto travel.
The pro-Hamas Islamic University and al-Aqsa University,identified with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's secularFatah movement, told students and teachers they could stay athome until next Saturday.
Al-Kamalain Shaath, president of the Islamic University,said only about 30 percent of its 20,000 students had attendedclass in recent days.
He said most of the students lived outside the city and "itis not easy to walk".
The crisis developed when petrol station owners in the GazaStrip refused to accept fuel supplied by Israel, in protest atsmaller quantities piped into the territory.
The situation worsened after Israel's decision to close theNahal Oz crossing point, where two Israeli civilians werekilled in an attack last week by militants on the only terminalfor transferring fuel to the Gaza Strip and its 1.5 millionpeople.
Israeli officials accuse Hamas of preventing distributionof fuel already pumped into the territory in order to create acrisis to pressure Israel to ease the blockade it tightenedafter the Islamist group seized the Gaza Strip in June.
"The crisis in Gaza is part of the choice made by theresidents of Gaza to take Hamas as its leader," Israeli DefenceMinister Ehud Barak told reporters in the southern town ofSderot, a frequent target of cross-border rocket attacks.
"We will continue to supply fuel and simple humanitarianneeds, things for hospitals, and cooking gas," he said. "In themeantime, the crossings, in general, will remain closed."
A senior U.N. relief official in Gaza, John Ging, said thesanctions were primarily harming the territory's civilians.
"The current situation is a threat to the health andwell-being of the population of the Gaza Strip," he toldreporters. "It is not stage-managed, it is reality."
Israel's Defence Ministry said in a statement it wouldallow in industrial fuel for Gaza's lone power plant onWednesday in response to a request from Egypt.
While welcoming the Israeli decision, Ging urged Israel torestore all kinds of supplies not only to the power plant.
Hamas, which won a Palestinian parliamentary election in2006 and has rejected Western calls to recognise Israel andrenounce violence, has blamed any fuel shortages on the Israeliblockade.
(Editing by Alison Williams)
