A/HRC/12/48 page 50 2006. The List of Change and Reform, of which Hamas represented the main component, won the elections for the Palestinian Legislative Council and formed a Government. Shortly thereafter, the international community redirected international aid from the Palestinian Authority to international organizations and humanitarian agencies, isolating the new Palestinian executive in a stated effort to put pressure on it to accept the so-called Quartet Principles. The Quartet had already announced that, to be recognized by the international community, any Palestinian Government should adhere to three “Principles”: (i) recognition of the State of Israel, (ii) recognition of previous agreements and (iii) renunciation of violence.24 Israel also imposed economic sanctions on the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority Government, including by withholding tax revenues it collected on imports and introducing additional restrictions on the movement of goods to and from the Gaza Strip. Israel declared that sanctions would be lifted only when the new Palestinian Government would abide by the Quartet Principles.25 189. In June 2006, a squad drawn from three groups – the Popular Resistance Committees, al-Qassam Brigades and the until then unknown Army of Islam – excavated a tunnel under the Gaza-Israel border and attacked the military base of Kerem Shalom inside Israel, blowing up a tank, killing two soldiers and capturing a third, Corporal Gilad Shalit. In reaction to the capture, the Israeli Government conducted a number of targeted assassinations of alleged militants belonging to Hamas and other groups; arrested Palestinian Authority cabinet ministers, Hamas parliamentarians and other leaders in the West Bank; attacked key civilian infrastructure in the Gaza Strip, such as the main power plant, the main bridge in central Gaza and Palestinian Authority offices; tightened the economic isolation; and carried out major armed thrusts into the Gaza Strip for the first time since August 2005.26 190. After the refusal of the politically defeated Fatah movement to cede the control of Palestinian Authority institutions and specifically security institutions to the new Government, armed clashes erupted between the two political groups both in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. In February 2007, Palestinian leaders assembled in Mecca signed an agreement sponsored by Saudi Arabia that led to the formation of a coalition Government that was approved by the Palestinian Legislative Council in March.27 The coalition Government was headed by Hamas and included members of other political movements, including Fatah, as well as independents. After only four months, violent clashes erupted again between armed and security forces loyal to Fatah and Hamas. By 14 June 2007, Hamas forces and armed groups had seized all Palestinian See “Briefing to the Security Council on the situation in the Middle East”, by Ms Angela Kane, Assistant Secretary-General for Political Affairs, 31 January 2006, available at: http://www.unsco.org/Documents/Statements/MSCB/2008/January%2031.pdf 24 In June 2006, Hamas subscribed to the so-called Prisoners Document, a common political platform shared by Fatah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP). An implicit recognition of the State of Israel could be traced to the statement that “the right to establish their independent state with al-Quds al-Sharif as its capital on all territories occupied in 1967”. See http://www.miftah.org/Display.cfm?DocId=10371&CategoryId=32. 25 See International Crisis Group, “Israel/Palestine/Lebanon: Climbing out of the abyss”, Middle East Report N° 57, 25 July 2006. 26 See “Briefing to the Security Council on the situation in the Middle East”, by Mr B. Lynn Pascoe, 25 April 2007, available at: http://www.unsco.org/Documents/Statements/MSCB/2007/April%202007.pdf. 27