Fuel, including gasoline and cooking gas, is expected to run out in the Palestinian territories by Thursday as an Israeli supplier decided to stop supplying the West Bank and Gaza, officials said yesterday.

Mjahed Salama, chief of the Palestinian Petrol Authorities, told Xinhua on telephone that he anticipated that fuel would run out in the Palestinian territories by Thursday after Israeli Fuel company refused to keep fuel supplies to the Palestinians.

Israeli fuel company Dor Energy, the sole provider of fuel to the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), decided to stop fuel supplies to the West Bank and the Gaza Strip due to growing Palestinian debt, Salama said.

Salama went on to say that the Palestinians owed about 26 million U.S. dollars to the Israeli company.

In the past, Israel has paid the debt from tax revenues it collects for the PNA.

Israel has frozen the monthly transfer of about 50 million dollars of tax revenues it collects on behalf of the Palestinians to the Hamas government.

Salama accused the company of taking a political decision which aimed to punish the Hamas-led cabinet.

Palestinian observers believe that cutting off fuel supplies in Gaza and the West Bank "would increase the possibility that a humanitarian crisis would occur in the Palestinian territories."

President Mahmoud Abbas has contacted US and EU officials, urging them to put pressure on Israel to resume fuel supplies to the Palestinian territories, Salama said.

Wednesday afternoon, rows of vehicles were waiting outside several gas stations in Gaza City to get fuel.

"It is really unfair," said Ahmed Skeikh, a 34-year-old driver, as he was waiting in the queue of cars outside one of gas stations in Gaza City.

"There are no salaries, a shortage of food and medicine and there is no fuel." he complained.

Skeikh added that life in the Gaza Strip "is becoming really difficult."

"What Israel and America want from us? If they want to kill us, I believe death is better than this kind of hard life," he said.

Defeating Abbas' long-dominant Fatah movement in the January legislative polls, Hamas has taken control of the Palestinian parliament and then the government.

In response to Hamas' persistence in refusing to recognize Israel's right to exist, renounce violence and honor previous Palestinian-Israeli agreements, the United States and the European Union have suspended direct aid to the Hamas government.

The aid cutoff and the halt of tax revenues as well as local and regional banks' refusal to deal with the Hamas government for fear of possible U.S. sanctions and lawsuits have led to a deep financial crisis. The Hamas government has not paid salaries to about 165,000 government employees since March.

The international quartet -- the United Nations, the United States, the European Union and Russia, convened in New York on Tuesday and approved a temporary international mechanism which would enable it to resume aid to the Palestinians but without dealing directly with Hamas.

The quartet once again demanded that Hamas renounce violence, recognize Israel's right to exist and honor previous Palestinian-Israeli agreements.