NGO: Nine months after ceasefire, urgent need to end Gaza blockade

A human rights organisation has urged the international community to ensure an end to the blockade of Gaza, nine months after the ceasefire that ended last year’s hostilities.

The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor, presenting data on the closure and lack of reconstruction, made five key demands to tackle Gaza’s plight:

• Bring all available pressures to bear on the Israeli government to end the blockade of Gaza.
• Call on the Israeli government to end the targeting of innocent fishermen, farmers and other citizens, a practice in violation of the 1949 Geneva Convention.
• Prevail upon the Egyptian government, using foreign aid as a lever, to open the Rafah crossing, without any restrictions.
• Investigate and hold the Israeli government accountable when it is charged with war crimes and ongoing violations of human rights. No barriers should be placed that hinder the ability of Palestinians or others to seek relief from third parties such as the International Criminal Court.
• Support the Palestinian call for a commercial seaport in Gaza that guarantees the free import and export of goods and private international travel.

Euro-Mid noted that, “with the exception of solidarity activists such as those aboard the trawler Marianne, now steaming its way toward Gaza from Sweden, most of the world’s attention has shifted away to other pressing issues.”

However, Gaza remains a crisis in the making that will blow up into another war, or at the very least cause large-scale and socially immoral suffering, if the international community does not re-shoulder its responsibilities.

Images by MEMO Photographer Mohammed Asad.