Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton sent angry messages to Israel in the past week, complaining that humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip is being blocked by officials in Jerusalem, Israeli media reported yesterday.
Clinton aides made it clear she would make the supposed Israeli foot-dragging a central issue next week when she makes her first trip to the region as secretary of state, the newspaper Haaretz reported.
“Israel is not making enough effort to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza,” a senior US official was quoted as telling Israeli authorities.
Israel refuses to reopen its crossing points into Gaza unless Hamas releases a soldier kidnapped by Palestinian terrorists two years ago.
Hamas rejects the quid pro quo.
“We will never accept a situation in which the price of a captive soldier is paid with crossings,” Mahmoud al-Zahar, a senior Hamas official, said yesterday.
Asked about the dispute, State Department spokesman Robert Wood said, “Aid should never be used as a political weapon.”
Clinton is scheduled to visit Israel on Tuesday, a day after attending a summit of 80 countries that are pledging aid to rebuild Gaza in the wake of a monthlong Israeli offense sparked by Hamas rocket fire.
The United States will give about $900 million, and Saudi Arabia said it is ready to donate $1 billion. Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad said yesterday he expected to raise $2.8 billion.
Russian sources said that during the summit, at Sharm el Sheik, Egypt, the leaders of the Mideast Quartet may meet in an effort to revive the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. The quartet comprises the United States, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations.
Despite the aid effort, Gaza terrorists launched rockets into Israel yesterday. No injuries were reported in the attack or in an Israeli airstrike against arms-smuggling tunnels on the Gaza-Egypt border.
Meanwhile, outgoing Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert urged Hamas to clinch a prisoner exchange with Israel before he leaves office, saying his successor would be less willing to free jailed Palestinians.
Olmert, whose centrist government is in a caretaker capacity while hawkish prime minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu tries to form a coalition, has stepped up efforts to recover Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier held in the Gaza Strip since 2006.
Hamas, which rules Gaza and withstood a devastating Israeli assault in January, wants 1,400 Palestinian prisoners – including terrorist leaders – to go free in exchange for Shalit. Israel has long balked at a lopsided swap, but recently has signaled flexibility in Egyptian-brokered talks.
Diplomats have said Israel could release around 1,000 prisoners. “Even Hamas, though it’s an inhuman group in terms of its behavior, and violent and brutal and murderous and totally insensitive to the most basic norms that we believe in, ultimately wants to free its prisoners,” Olmert told Israel’s Channel Two television.
“And it knows that if there is a chance of reaching a settlement, it’s during my tenure.”