EU STOPS FUNDING FOR GAZA ELECTRICITY, BUT WILL IT LAST?

Here's a welcome step that the otherwise corrupt European Union just took, but for how long?

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) - Hundreds of thousands of Gaza residents were forced to make do without electricity Monday as the coastal strip's power supply became the latest victim of feuding between Gaza's Hamas rulers and their Fatah rivals.

European donors stopped paying key electricity aid over the weekend, concerned that Hamas is siphoning off revenues. As Fatah and Hamas traded charges of corruption, at least half of Gaza's 1.4 million people were plunged into darkness. [...]

On Sunday, the European Union stopped funding fuel for the power plant that produces electricity for at least 700,000 Gazans. On Monday, it said the payments would not resume because it had information that Hamas was "diverting" electricity revenues.

"We are ready to resume our support to the Gaza power plant within hours once we receive the appropriate assurances that all the funds will be exclusively used for the benefit of the Gaza population," the European Commission - the EU's executive branch - said in a statement.

If they were smart, they'd take all that money and use it to help aid people on their own continent who need it more than a bunch of hatemongers do.

Here's some definite good news though:

Also Monday, an Israeli airstrike killed six Hamas militants in central Gaza, according to Hamas and Palestinian medical officials. The Israeli army said its aircraft targeted a car carrying gunmen who fired rockets into Israel earlier in the day.

Very good.