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Gaza blockade sparks outcry
21/01/2008 19:08 - (SA)
Brussels - The European Union led mounting calls on Monday for Israel to end its crippling four-day-old blockade of Gaza as Egypt came under pressure to open the territory's only access to the outside world that bypasses the Jewish state.
Radical and pro-Western Arab governments alike called for urgent international intervention to secure an end to the closure which plunged much of Gaza City into darkness on Sunday night and has left hospitals with dwindling fuel stocks.
EU External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero Waldner accused Israel of the "collective punishment" of Gaza's aid-dependent population of 1.5 million people as the UN agency for Palestinian refugees warned it would be forced to stop food distribution within days if the lockdown continued.
The EU commissioner warned that neither the blockade nor the deadly air and ground strikes of the past week would bring Israel security from militant rocket fire.
"Only a credible political agreement this year ... can turn Palestinians away from violence," she said.
Peace negotiations
Israel relaunched peace negotiations with moderate Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas at a conference in the United States last November and during a visit to the Holy Land less than two weeks ago US President George W. Bush said he hoped to see a final agreement before he leaves office next January.
The Gaza Strip has been outside Abbas's control since the Islamist Hamas movement seized power there last June, but the Palestinian leader warned late on Sunday that he would raise the blockade with the UN Security Council if it was not lifted within hours.
The leading radical Arab state, Syria, said the Israeli actions against Gaza made a mockery of the relaunched peace talks and called for urgent international intervention.
"Talk of a peace process between Israel and the Palestinians flies in the face of the green light being given to the attacks and blockade," a foreign ministry statement said.
Neighbouring Lebanon, which has a Western-backed government strongly opposed to Syria, called on the Western powers to end their silence over Israel's military action against Gaza which has killed 37 people, most of them militants, in a week.
Israeli offensive
"It is the duty of the Security Council, the US, the EU and the Arab League to act immediately to stop the Israeli offensive, and to denounce Israel," Prime Minister Fuad Siniora said.
"Israel is profiting from the international silence... to unleash its rage against the inhabitants of Gaza."
Egypt, one of just two Arab countries with Jordan to have signed a peace treaty with the Jewish state, made frantic calls to Israeli leaders appealing for an end to the military action and a lifting of the blockade.
President Hosni Mubarak rang both Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Defence Minister Ehud Barak, the official MENA news agency said.
Israel won't back off
But his appeals drew short shrift from the Israeli premier who promised no let-up in the lockdown as long as Hamas remained in power.
"The population has to understand that as long as Hamas rules there, we will provide them only with the bare minimum," he said.
Hamas responded by calling for Arab pressure on Egypt, the only Arab state that borders Gaza, to open up its Rafah crossing to desperately needed supplies.
"We have one demand and that is the opening of the Rafah crossing and the breaking of the siege," said Ismail Haniya, the Palestinian prime minister dismissed after the Islamist takeover of Gaza, calling on the Arab League to take "concrete steps" to break the blockade.
The Rafah crossing has remained largely closed since last June although Egypt has occasionally opened it in defiance of Israel, most recently for returning Muslim pilgrims last month.
Israel has insisted that the crossing should remain closed ever since international monitors pulled out after the Islamists seized power. Palestinian radical factions allied with Hamas delivered a similar message to the Egyptians from their base in exile in Damascus.
'Open the Rafah crossing'
"We appeal to Mubarak, whose country has historical and geographic links with Gaza, to end the blockade and open the Rafah crossing to fuel and medical supplies for Gaza," said Talal Naji of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - General Command.
But Olmert accused the Islamists of playing to world opinion.
"Hamas is deliberately intensifying the crisis in the Gaza Strip in order to create pressure from the international community on Israel," he told visiting Dutch Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen.
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