“Gaza is not only the scene of a dramatic humanitarian emergency, but also the scene of an unprecedented Israeli military attack, where every day children and civilians meet death. A shame and a crime, the responsibility for which goes beyond the entire Israeli government and its labour minister, Peretz, who before being elected used to say that  “the Israeli military occupation is a moral outrage for Israel” and beyond the ineptness, that has become complicity, of the International Community and the European Union.

These military attacks that affect Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip in their daily lives, the closure of the Rafah Crossing, the only way out of the Gaza Strip to the world outside, clearly proves that the Palestinian population continues to be under the control of unilateral decisions taken by the Israeli government and continues to be closed in a cage by a cruel master that throws food inside depending on its humour.

The Gaza Strip, which is entirely surrounded by the State of Israel, with the exception of the Rafah border crossing that divides it from the Egyptian Sinai, is subjected to  arbitrary openings and closures decided by Israel from time to time: closures and lack of freedom of movement for people and goods.

The European observers responsible for that crossing, on the basis of the agreement reached last year between Israel, the Palestinian National Authority and the European Union, after the unilateral Israeli withdrawal, were unable to reach Rafah this morning because the crossing was closed.

The European Union has the right/duty to instruct Israel the grant free access to  these European observers and to respect the agreements signed by all parties, as well as to demand a ceasefire from the Israeli side as is required for the Palestinian side, and already applied by the Palestinian Authority."

 

For info: Luisa Morgantini  or Francesca Cutarelli

 

+39 348 39 21 465  +39 3405649335