Last October we wrote that "the UN is preparing to blame Israel" as the Palestinians laid the groundwork for a manufactured humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Turns out, that was true:

Gaza's only electrical plant shut down most of its turbines Sunday after an Israeli border closure blocked the entry of fuel that powers them, Palestinian officials said. But Shlomo Dror, a spokesman for Israel's defense ministry, said Gaza has enough fuel and accused Palestinian officials of trying to create the impression of a crisis that did not exist. The fuel shortage was a result of Defense Minister Ehud Barak's decision on Thursday to halt all shipments to the Strip... after Hamas renewed Kassam rocket fire last week, resulting in unusually heavy barrages on Sderot... In addition to the fuel it receives from Israel to power its electrical plant, Gaza gets about two-thirds of its electricity directly from Israel. Israeli officials said that supply would not be affected. The UN organization in charge of Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, warned the move would drastically affect hospitals, sewage treatment plants and water facilities. "The logic of this defies basic humanitarian standards," said Christopher Gunness, spokesman for the UN Relief and Works Agency... "If they shut it down, it's not because of a fuel shortage, but because they want to create the impression of a crisis," Dror said. The power plant shutdown, he said, would "not be comfortable, but it's not a humanitarian crisis." Despite the damage the sanctions were causing Gaza's population, Hamas said its attacks on Israel would not cease.

Israel had actually fully restored fuel to Gaza before last week. Then came the newest Qassam barrage, which any country on the planet would have responded to with a full scale invasion. Instead, Israel modestly cut Gaza's energy - stopping the fuel that is fungible and that Hamas steals from hospitals to use in "operations" against Israel but keeping electricity flowing. And that's still somehow an intolerable imposition on the sainted Palestinian people who elected Hamas to wage unremitting war on Israel. The little darlings want to lash out in impotent but satisfying genocidal petulance, but they still expect Israel to supply them with the fuel to drive their jeeps back and forth from the border. It's quite simply surreal.

More on the intentionally-engineered Gaza humanitarian crisis after the jump.