(BRUSSELS) - EU External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero Waldner hit out at Israel Monday, slamming its blockade of the strife-torn Gaza Strip as "collective punishment".

"I am against this collective punishment of the people of Gaza. I urge the Israeli authorities to restart fuel supplies and open the crossings for the passage of humanitarian and commercial supplies," she said in a statement.

Gaza's sole power plant shut down overnight for want of fuel as a punishing four-day Israeli blockade on the Hamas-run territory threatened to spark a humanitarian crisis.

EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana also called for an end to the blockade saying: "We cannot agree with the situation in Gaza today."

"It's time to change the position and really allow humanitarian aid to get to Gaza, people are suffering," he told reporters after holding talks with Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf.

Ferrero-Waldner, while also condemning rocket attacks on Israeli territory, said the decision to close all border crossings into Gaza as well as to stop the provision of fuel "will exacerbate an already dire humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip."

"Closing the crossings will also result in shortages of food, medical and relief items," she added.

She insisted that neither the blockade nor recent military strikes in the narrow coastal strip of Palestinian territory would prevent the rocket strikes being launched into Israel.

"Only a credible political agreement this year ... can turn Palestinians away from violence," she said.

The EU's executive body, through a special international mechanism, has been supplying fuel to run the Gaza plant. Even fuel used to fire the many generators in use in the territory was in danger of running out Monday.

Thousands of Palestinians took to the streets of refugee camps in Lebanon on Monday in protest at Israel's siege of Gaza, some baying for revenge and setting Israeli and US flags ablaze.

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