Popular dissatisfaction is fed by Islamists’ refusal to engage Israel in dialogue and the Jewish state’s blockade of the territory. Thousands of people are without water, power comes on and off, and even ambulances are stranded without fuel.

Gaza (AsiaNews/Agencies) – Support for Hamas has dropped in the Gaza. A large majority of the residents of the Strip sides is now in favour of Fatah's path to formal talks with Israel, this according to a survey conducted by the Ramallah-based Near East Consulting, an independent market research firm.

About 61 per cent of Palestinians who took part in the November poll said they see Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah Party, which controls the Palestinian Authority (PA), as the legitimate government for the Palestinian people.

But despite its loss of support, Hamas continues to oppose any dialogue with Israel. It called the recent Annapolis conference a failure and gift to the United States and Israel.

Yet it is exactly this intransigence that is behind Israel’s relentless pressure on the small territory home for up to 1.4 million people. Having labelled Gaza an “enemy entity,” the Jewish state has blocked all access points to the area and practically stopped supplies, including petrol.

Israel’s largest daily,     Yedioth Ahronoth, has reported that tens of thousands of Gaza residents are without fresh water because pumps can’t run. Power runs intermittently, service stations have shut down, and hospitals have no functioning ambulances. Bicycles have become the best means of transportation. Making matters worse Israel’s High Court of Justice ruled today that the State's plan to further restrict the supply of fuel to the Gaza Strip can go ahead as planned.

Israeli policy towards the Strip is not however without domestic critics.

“There is no concept of how to deal with Hamas,” says Gidi Grinstein, who was part of the Israeli peace team for the 2000 Camp David summit, and chairs the Tel Aviv-based Reut Institute.

The net result of the situation is that whilst Israelis might discuss what to do and the Israeli army might be getting ready for what it expects to be a large scale offensive in Gaza, Hamas continues to claim that its election victory in January 2006 and its control over Gaza cannot be ignored, polls or no polls, since the Islamists make up more than 50 per cent of the Palestinian population. In the end, “stability will not come without the Islamists,” said Nasser Eddin Eshaer, the top Hamas politician in the West Bank.

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