(BRUSSELS) - EU Humanitarian Aid Commissioner Louis Michel on Thursday urged Israel to ensure fuel supplies to the Gaza Strip, amid UN warnings that aid to Palestinian refugees there will end otherwise.

"It is unacceptable that the UN should find itself having to consider suspending its humanitarian operations simply for a lack of fuel for its vehicles," Michel said in a statement.

"It is also unacceptable that public services, such as garbage collection, sewage treatment, or hospitals, are at the brink of collapse for the same reason," he added.

"It's essential that the fuel supply to Gaza is resumed, and in particular that fuel provision for the United Nations agencies as well as basic services be guaranteed immediately."

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees warned that aid distribution would end in the Gaza Strip on Thursday unless Israel allows new fuel supplies, but Israel blamed Hamas for the shortages.

UN officials said the UN's Relief and Works Agency and the World Food Programme, who together feed more than one million Gazans, would have to suspend aid distribution until they receive diesel for the trucks that deliver the food.

Israel, which maintains a punishing blockade on the impoverished Palestinian territory, claimed Hamas was preventing distribution of one million litres of fuel (264,000 gallons) delivered about a week ago to the Nahal Oz terminal on the Gaza border.

Michel stressed that "humanitarian aid is neutral."

"It does not seek to confer any advantage on any party or imply any form of political recognition. Humanitarian relief work is about ensuring that a civilian population gets at least its basic needs met," he added.

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