THE Palestinian Authority will soon announce the composition of a “temporary” committee to manage the Gaza Strip, Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa announced today.

He spoke as Amnesty International published a report accusing Israel of carrying out a “deliberate” campaign of starvation in the devastated coastal enclave.

Mr Mustafa said that the Palestinian Authority would “soon announce a temporary committee to manage the affairs of the Gaza Strip under the authority of the Palestinian government.

“We are not creating a new political entity in Gaza, but rather reactivating the role of official institutions.

“There must be one state, one law, one system and one weapon.”

The Palestinian PM insisted that Gaza was “an inseparable part of the state of Palestine recognised internationally, the PLO is the sole legitimate representative and the Palestinian government is the only executive body authorised to manage Gaza’s affairs.”

He said: “There is no time for mourning, because our people in Gaza need an end to the war and reconstruction.

“We continue to work with our brothers in Egypt to hold a Gaza reconstruction conference in Cairo as soon as possible.”

Amnesty International’s report says Israel is “carrying out a deliberate campaign of starvation in Gaza, systematically destroying the health, wellbeing and social fabric of Palestinian life.”

The human rights group says testimonies have revealed that the “deadly combination of hunger and disease is not an unfortunate byproduct of Israel’s military operations. It is the intended outcome of plans and policies that Israel has designed and implemented over the past 22 months.”

Amnesty senior director for research, advocacy, policy and campaigns Erika Guevara Rosas said: “As Israeli authorities threaten to launch a full-scale ground invasion of Gaza City, the testimonies we have collected are far more than accounts of suffering, they are a searing indictment of an international system that has granted Israel a licence to torment Palestinians with near-total impunity for decades.”

In one testimony, Abu Alaa, a displaced man from Jabalia refugee camp, told the group that he is surviving on one meal of lentil soup a day, bread is only distributed once a week and he has not eaten any fruit in months.

“I can tolerate the hunger, but children cannot,” he said, going on to describe the desperate scramble at aid sites. “In the past, we used to support each other, especially those in need. Even during the beginning of this war. Now people are just led by the individual instinct to survive.”