GAZA, Nov 18: Israel resealed border crossings with the Gaza Strip on Tuesday citing continued rocket fire at its towns, despite warnings from world aid groups of looming shortages of food and fuel supplies in the coastal territory.

Israel had allowed 33 truckloads of supplies into Gaza for the first time in two weeks on Monday, and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas he would not permit a humanitarian crisis to develop there.

“The crossings are shut because of ongoing rocket fire,” Peter Lerner, a defence spokesman said, referring to several barrages of rockets fired from Gaza on Monday that slammed into Israeli towns, causing no injury.International aid groups said the supplies sent in on Monday were not enough to alleviate food shortages.

Israel has also held up fuel shipments to Gaza's main power plant, leading to daily electricity blackouts for many of the 1.5 million Palestinians living in the territory.

Israel had not allowed UNRWA, a United Nations agency that aids some 750,000 refugees in Gaza, to bring in supplies since Nov 4 during cross-border fighting in which more than a dozen Palestinian fighters were killed.

Several Israelis have been lightly wounded by dozens of rockets fired by gunmen after the Israeli raids.

Hamas gunmen fired mortar bombs at Israeli soldiers searching for explosives near the Gaza border fence on Tuesday, Israeli military and Hamas said. There were no reported casualties from that incident.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay called for an immediate end of the Israeli blockade of Gaza, which she said was “in direct contravention of international human rights and humanitarian law.”

“It must end now,” she said in a statement released in Geneva on Tuesday. “Only a full lifting of the blockade followed by a strong humanitarian response will be adequate to relieve the massive humanitarian suffering evident in Gaza today.” The British-based Oxfam International humanitarian agency said in a statement that “only the bare minimum of goods have entered Gaza in the past couple of days” and that it feared a serious worsening of the situation.

In talks with Olmert in Jerusalem on Monday, Abbas urged Israel to abide by a 5-month-old Egyptian-brokered truce with Hamas Islamists who control Gaza, a deal that has neared collapse in the past two weeks of fighting.

Mahmoud al-Zahar, a Hamas leader, said the Islamists told Egypt they were committed to the truce after receiving Cairo's assurances of Israel's continued commitment. But he said Hamas “reserved the right” to defend itself against Israeli attacks.

—Reuters