The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) suspended yesterday the provision of aid to Gaza following the confiscation of 10 cargos of flour and rice by Hamas. Meanwhile, the supposed truce between Israel and Hamas was once again broken, as the Israeli army declared that its soldiers had shot dead a Palestinian when he attacked a military patrol close to the borders between the Gaza Strip and the 1948 Arabs' lands. A military force was pushing into an area close to Khan Yunis, in the south, and started to fire randomly. A spokesman of the army said two Qassam rockets were fired from the Gaza Strip to Southern Israel without causing any victims or damage. Meanwhile, the port of Naqoura received the activists onboard el-Akhwa [Brotherhood] ship with its aid cargo. They had been intercepted by war ships in Gaza's territorial waters. A spokesman of the Lebanese army said that the Israelis had delivered the Lebanese to the UNIFIL through the Naqoura border crossing and that the UNIFIL had in turn handed them over to the Lebanese army. Meanwhile, Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said Israel had proven that it had changed the equation and that it would no longer be possible to break into the cordon imposed around Gaza. The Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, though, said that all attempts by Israel or other countries in the region to prevent arms smuggling for the factions in Gaza would inevitably fail. In the meantime, Israel's Prime Minister Ehud Olmert decided to allow 175 million shekels into the Gaza Strip to enable the Palestinian Authority to pay its employees' salaries. He took this decision in spite of the objections expressed by Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Foreign Minister Livni. According to the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper, the money will be transferred according to Palestinian Prime Minister Salaam Fayyad's request. Israeli security sources, though, said they feared this money would indirectly arrive at Hamas.
