Informed Speculation

There’s any easy way out of this, isn’t there?

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has demanded that Israel take urgent action to prevent a humanitarian disaster in the Gaza Strip.

Israeli jets continued to pound Gaza targets on Sunday in operations aimed at securing the release of a soldier captured by Palestinian militants.

A Palestinian rocket hit the Israeli town of Sderot, injuring one man.

Mr Annan called on Israel to restore supplies of food and fuel and to repair a power plant hit in an air strike.

Mr Annan urged Israel to lift restrictions on the movement of basic goods such as foodstuffs into Gaza.

He said UN agencies must be allowed to work in the region.

Israel has rejected a call by the head of the Hamas-led Palestinian government for a ceasefire.

Mr Annan’s statement was his second in as many days about the situation in Gaza.

The BBC’s Richard Galpin at the UN in New York says Mr Annan is clearly becoming increasingly alarmed by what is happening and is becoming increasingly blunt in his statements.

Mr Annan said the strike on the region’s only power station had affected hospitals, water and sanitation plants, as well as food production.

In a separate statement, UN agencies including the World Health Organization, Unicef and the World Food Programme said Gaza was on the brink of a public health disaster.

They said there were water shortages and the situation at the sewage plants was now critical.

The WHO said hospitals and health centres – which are having to use their own generators for electricity – have at most two weeks’ supply of fuel.

Release the Israeli soldier, and I guarantee the bombardment will stop.  Annan, per usual, is barking up the wrong tree…