For the umpteenth time in recent months, Israel has received proof that severed relations between Jerusalem and Ramallah and between Ramallah and Gaza could significantly compromise security on the Gaza border.

Palestinian sources said Thursday that threats made by the Palestinian Authority to an Israeli gas company and to UN employees have delayed the planned transfer of emergency Qatari-funded fuel to Gaza.

The latest fracas shows how attempts by the US administration and by Israel to deal directly with Gaza — actually with Hamas, the terror group that runs the Strip — are time and again hindered by the PA and its president, Mahmoud Abbas.

Get The Times of Israel's Daily Edition by email and never miss our top stories Free Sign Up

As Haaretz reported Thursday, in recent days it was agreed in a meeting of donors to the Strip that Qatar would pay for fuel for Gaza’s sole power plant, under a UN-brokered deal that seeks to end the severe energy crisis gripping the Palestinian enclave.

According to a Palestinian report, Qatar will invest $60 million, which should be enough for six months in which Gazans will enjoy eight hours of electricity every day, instead of the current four.

Yes, that still means power for only a third of every day, but in Gaza terms that would be real improvement. Such a step could help calm tensions on the border and reduce the danger of imminent war.

The move was promoted by three men: Qatari envoy to Israel and Gaza Mohammed Al-Emadi, UN envoy to the Middle East Nikolai Mladenov and the head of Israel’s National Security Council Meir Ben Shabbat.

The diesel fuel was supposed to enter Gaza on Thursday morning through the Kerem Shalom crossing.

However, according to Palestinian sources in Gaza, the Palestinian Authority contacted the Israeli gas company that provides diesel fuel to both the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, and threatened to boycott it and stop all purchases if it transferred the fuel to Gaza. The PA warned it would start buying all its fuel and gas from another country, such as Jordan.

The sources also said PA officials called UN employees in Gaza who were to physically transfer the fuel and threatened that they would pay a “heavy price” if they showed up to work.

In other words, the PA blocked an improvement in the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip, primarily to make clear to the whole world that it must be involved in any step regarding the territory.

Abbas has repeatedly warned that that there can be no two separate entities ruling Palestinian lands, stating that if the PA is not handed complete control of the Gaza Strip, Hamas will have to take full responsibility for the territory.

The PA’s actions bring us to Hamas leader in the Strip Yahya Sinwar’s interview with Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth through an Italian journalist, in which he said he did not want war with the Jewish state. Predictably, Sinwar’s office denied Thursday morning that he was aware he was speaking to Yedioth, saying the interview was given to Italian newspaper La Repubblica and that his staff had checked that the journalist, Francesca Borri, wasn’t Israeli or “Jewish.”

But that trick by Hamas’s leaders is old and familiar. At the end of the day, what’s important is the message. Sinwar wanted to warn that both sides are on a slippery slope to an inevitable war.

Though he urged an end to the blockade to prevent such a war, his message doesn’t necessarily involve a demand for specific action by Israel, but rather that Israel force the PA into relieving its chokehold on Gaza. Israel maintains the blockade to prevent Hamas from importing weaponry.

In about two weeks, the Palestine Liberation Organization’s Executive Committee will convene and possibly resolve to completely halt all its payments to Gaza, which currently stand at $96 million a month.

In such a scenario, even the stalled Qatari aid of some $60 million won’t stop the Strip’s collapse and the war that will follow.