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3 Gaza children burned to death due to energy crisis, Hamas blames Israel

03 April 2012 00:19 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. Islamic Hamas movement on Monday held Israel responsible for the death of three children from central Gaza Strip, who were burned to death on Sunday night, when a candle ignited their room as they were sleeping amid a severe crisis of electricity and fuel in the coastal enclave, APA reports quoting Xinhua.

Ismail Haneya, the deposed premier of Hamas rule in the enclave, who participated in the funeral of the three children from the town of Deir el-Ballah, told reporters that Israel, which keeps a tight blockade on the Gaza Strip, is responsible in the first place for the tragedy.

Haneya was referring to the severe crisis of fuel and electricity in the Gaza Strip that has been going on for several months. He said the three children are martyrs and died when they lit a candle in their house which didn’t have electricity like thousands of houses in the Gaza Strip.

"The Arab states, which keep a long silence for the siege and for seeing our people heavily suffering, can never be excluded from responsibility," Haneya said with outrage, adding "anyone who accepts to see our children die in tragic disasters in their homes are also responsible."

On Sunday night, three children, brothers from Bashir family in central Gaza were taken out from their room burned to death. Initial investigation revealed that the children lit a candle in their room during the long-time blackout in their town, which burned their room and killed them while they were sleeping.

On Monday, hundreds of angry mourners carried the bodies of the three children on their shoulders and buried them in a cemetery in central Gaza Strip. Nadim, a 6-year-old-boy, Farah, a 5-year-old- girl and Sabri, a 4-year-old-boy, died in their room after they were burned to death.

The Gaza Strip has been going on a severe electricity crisis and a severe shortage of fuel since 2006. Israel in June 2006 destroyed the main Gaza power station and in 2008, it considered the Hamas-ruled coastal enclave a hostile entity and restricted pumping the needed amounts of fuels to the population.

The three children’s parents and the mourners were deeply grieved. The family does have an electric generator, but it doesn’ t have fuel to operate it, where they lit a candle in the room of their children, but didn’t know that their story would end up with a tragedy.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas announced in a statement that the three children "are considered as martyrs," giving instructions to send urgent aid to the family. The Palestinian Non- Governmental Organization Network said the disaster is "so tragic. "

PNGO Network held the Palestinian leaders in Gaza and the West Bank responsible, who so far failed to resolve the crisis of electricity and the shortage of fuel. The group, based in Gaza, warned that the ongoing crisis may lead to more disasters and tragedies as medical and humanitarian services declined.

The Gaza-based rights group al-Dameer said in a press statement emailed to reporters that it warns of facing more disasters due to the misuse of alternatives to energy and storing fuels in doors and inside stores. "This would cause more tragic disasters for the population."

It called on the government of Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip, to carry out a series of measures and a comprehensive program of awareness for the population’s safety. The group held all the Palestinian, Arab and international parties responsible for the increasing suffering of Gaza Strip people.

Meanwhile, the Hamas-run energy corporation said that the death of the three children is the responsibility of those who are not allowing the needed fuel to operate the Gaza power station that had stopped on Feb. 14, adding that "barring fuel to the enclave is a war crime."

Local officials in the Gaza Strip said that since June 2007, the crisis mounted after the Egyptian authorities also restricted the process of pumping fuel in the Gaza Strip through smuggling tunnels under the borderline between the Gaza Strip and Egypt.

Salah el-Bardaweel, a senior Hamas leader in Gaza said in a press statement that the death of three children "is ringing a bell of alarm that bigger disasters are expected in Gaza," adding that depriving the Gaza Strip from electricity and fuel is a war crime and against humanity."

Left-wing groups, led by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) expressed anger in a statement for the accident, adding that "if the crisis keeps going on, and no solution is found, a popular explosion in the Gaza Strip against the crisis is expected."