Occupied Jerusalem, March 13, 2010 (Pal Telegraph)- Israeli War Minister Ehud Barak ordered the army to seal off the West Bank for 48 hours until midnight tonight, an army spokesman said.

The action was taken "for security reasons" including a risk of attacks, the spokesman said yesterday. The area was sealed off at midnight on Thursday.

Israeli police also said they would bar Muslim men under the age of 50 from prayers yesterday at Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, one of Islam's holiest sites, fearing unrest.

The moves come after violent clashes at the site during last week's Muslim prayers, and fresh tensions over Israeli plans to build 1,600 homes for Jewish colonists in occupied east Jerusalem.

Meanwhile, the UN humanitarian chief warned Thursday of an impending humanitarian disaster if Egypt succeeds in blocking the tunnels that pass under its border into the Gaza Strip.

John Holmes said that Gaza would have difficulty surviving if Egypt succeeds in blocking them because they are a conduit for badly-needed food, medicine and commercial goods.

He repeated calls for Israel to end its blockade of the Palestinian territory.

The tunnels are also widely believed to be used for smuggling cash and weapons to Hamas, which wrested control of Gaza from the Palestinian Authority in 2005. The Israeli government has repeatedly tried to shut the tunnels down.

Egypt has a fence along Gaza's southern border and is reinforcing the area with underground metal plates to try to block the tunnels. Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak has defended the move as necessary for his nation's security.

Holmes said it was "very frustrating" to see that there has been almost no rebuilding in Gaza, as a result of the Israeli blockade, since the three-week conflict that ended in January 2009, leaving almost 1,400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis dead.

"What people in Gaza want to see is the opening of the crossings... not only for goods but for people because they are living ... in a large open-air prison," Holmes said.

Holmes said the blockade is not helping Israel's security or weakening Hamas' hold on the Palestinian territory.

Agencies--