U.N. says Gaza faces "disaster" without more aid

By Nidal al-Mughrabi

GAZA (Reuters) - The leading U.N. aid agency for the Palestinians said Israel's decision to let some supplies into the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip on Tuesday was a first step, but would not be sufficient to head off a humanitarian disaster.

"In terms of the supplies coming in today, welcome as they are, they are nothing but the first step," said John Ging, head of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) in Gaza.

Unless Israel agrees to open the border crossings to aid shipments on a permanent basis, "we will face another disaster very quickly", he told Reuters in an interview.

Israel allowed fuel supplies to resume on Tuesday to Gaza's main power plant, offering a limited respite from a blockade that plunged much of the impoverished territory into darkness and touched off international protests.

Israel said it would also allow international aid agencies to bring up to 50 trucks of food and medicine into Gaza, citing a decline in the frequency of cross-border rocket attacks by Palestinian militants since Defence Minister Ehud Barak closed the crossings on Friday.

But the number of trucks that made it through Israel's Kerem Shalom crossing with Gaza on Tuesday fell well short of what was planned, aid agencies said.

Ging's agency, which provides food assistance to an estimated 860,000 Palestinian refugees, got only seven of its 17 trucks through.

Likewise, the World Food Programme managed to get only three of its seven trucks in, according to Bekim Mahmuti, head of logistics for the agency.