World has Betrayed Gaza: Rights Groups

Source: PressTV

More than a dozen human rights groups and charities have condemned the international community's failure to end Israel's crippling blockade of the Gaza Strip.

Amnesty and Oxfam were among 16 UK-based non-governmental organizations (NGOs) which hurled criticism in a report against the world's silence toward the "collective punishment" of some 1.5 million Gazans.

"The international community has betrayed the people of Gaza by failing to back their words with effective action to secure the ending of the Israeli blockade, which is preventing reconstruction and recovery," said the report on Tuesday.

Israel and Egypt have sealed off crossings into the Hamas-run coastal enclave since June 2007, barely permitting vital humanitarian aid into the impoverished territory.

"It is not only Israel that has failed the people of Gaza" with the months-long blockade, said Jeremy Hobbs, executive director of Oxfam International.

"World powers have also failed and even betrayed Gaza's ordinary citizens. They have wrung hands and issued statements, but have taken little meaningful action to attempt to change the damaging policy that prevents reconstruction," he stressed.

According to rights groups, Israel has allowed only 41 truckloads of construction materials into Gaza, hindering the reconstruction of "the extensive damage" Israel's last year offensive inflicted on homes, civilian infrastructure, public services, farms and businesses in the region.

The report also called on European foreign ministers to visit Gaza to see the damage for themselves and urged the EU to do all it can to lift the blockade.

Israel controls all Gaza's border crossings except the Rafah terminal with Egypt, which Cairo rarely opens.

Egypt has recently started to erect a metal barrier to disrupt an underground tunnel network Gazans use for pushing in their basic needs that Israel does not allow into Gaza markets.

Israeli warplanes regularly pound the tunnels which Tel Aviv claims Palestinian activists use for smuggling weapons for resistance fighters in the Gaza Strip. But the Palestinians vehemently reject the allegations, describing the tunnels as food tubes helping the 1.5 million people living in the coastal territory fight off starvation.