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Israel Holds Hamas-Led PA Directly Responsible for Tel Aviv Attack as Occupied Territories Starved of International Aid

The Israeli government has announced it holds the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority directly responsible for Monday's suicide bombing in Tel Aviv. Nine people were killed in the blast, making it the deadliest Palestinian strike against Israel in two years. The group Islamic Jihad took responsibility for the bombing and Hamas said the attack was justified. Israel called Hamas's justifications "clear declarations of war."

The bombing was widely criticized by the international community. Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri defended his stance, saying "Hamas and the Palestinian people will not buckle in the face of political pressure and blackmail." Meanwhile, Israeli troops clashed with hundreds of Palestinian stone throwers in the West Bank city of Nablus on Wednesday. Israeli forces reportedly fired tear gas, rubber-coated steel pellets and some live rounds at the crowds. Israeli troops also arrested more than 20 Palestinians in raids across the West Bank. The father of the Tel Aviv bomber was reported to be among those detained.

Israel said it plans to revoke the residency permits of several Hamas MPs living in East Jerusalem. This comes as Japan has confirmed that it will halt new aid payments to the Palestinian Authority, adding to a financial crisis. The US and EU have cut off millions of dollars in aid to the PA since Hamas's victory in the January 25th elections, demanding that Hamas recognize Israel and renounce violence. Last week Oxfam International warned that the humanitarian crisis in the West Bank and Gaza will only worsen in response to international aid cuts.

• Adrienne Smith, spokesperson for Oxfam, an international aid organization. She speaks to us from Boston.
• Rashid Khalidi, Edward Said Professor of Arab Studies and the Director of the Middle East Institute at Columbia University. He's also the author of several books most recently "Resurrecting Empire: Western Footprints and America's Perilous Path in the Middle East."
• Shir Hever, economic researcher for the Alternative Information Center in Jerusalem.

AMY GOODMAN: For more on the humanitarian situation, we begin with Adrienne Smith, spokesperson for Oxfam. Welcome to Democracy Now!

ADRIENNE SMITH: Hi, Amy.

AMY GOODMAN: It’s good to have you with us. Can you talk both about the situation in the Occupied Territories now, who has cut off aid, what it means, and also about the latest suicide bombing?

ADRIENNE SMITH: Well, obviously, we're very concerned about the humanitarian situation. People there were living in a very difficult environment already, so a cutoff of aid would have very serious implications.

AMY GOODMAN: And the suicide bombing that just took place?

ADRIENNE SMITH: Well, obviously, that has even more serious implications, because it really distracts in a really horrific, horrifying way from the situation and the very precarious situation for people living on both sides who have very real security needs. So, obviously, we're very horrified by that and very much renounce the situation and hope that it can be resolved.

AMY GOODMAN: How is the Occupied Territories affected by the aid cutoffs?

ADRIENNE SMITH: Well, what happened is that as the European Community decided that they wanted to cut off aid to the territory, to the Palestinian Authority specifically, there was a hope and a desire that N.G.O.s, like an Oxfam or the Red Cross, would be able to continue aid so that people were unaffected, so that one could both simultaneously cut off the Palestinian Authority, but also not have people affected. And we don't believe that that's possible.

You know, Oxfam is providing the only source of clean water to about 140,000 villages and to families who depend on that, and so we certainly will do everything we can to help people, but we do not feel that we can replace the Palestinian Authority in infrastructure that existed, and the Red Cross has done a similar assessment, as have other groups. And we just feel that that is not a scenario that's going to work. So we are talking about people being hurt.

AMY GOODMAN: Your figures at Oxfam, Palestinians in the Occupied Territories, 60% of them live on about $2 a day?

ADRIENNE SMITH: That's exactly right. And living in deep need like that, they're not in a position where they've set aside provisions. They haven't been able to stock up. So this will cause a real change in their livelihoods. And that's not a change that these people can afford.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to thank you for being with us, Adrienne Smith, spokesperson for Oxfam, speaking to us from Boston. For more on the latest news out of the Occupied Territories, we're joined on the phone by Rashid Khalidi, Edward Said Professor of Arab Studies and the Director of the Middle East Institute at Columbia University. He's also the author of several books. His latest, Resurrecting Empire: Western Footprints and America's Perilous Path in the Middle East. We're also joined on the phone from Israel by Shir Hever, an economic researcher for the Alternative Information Center in Jerusalem.

Professor Rashid Khalidi, your description of what is happening right now in the Occupied Territories and the European Union, the United States, Canada, now Japan cutting off aid to the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority?