Starving Gaza inhabitants is a crime, says Israeli peace bloc Gush Shalom

Gush Shalom: The starving of the Gaza inhabitants is a crime

Thursday September 20, 2007 11:54 by George Rishmawi - IMEMC News george at imemc dot org

The Israeli left wing movement, Gush Shalom, (Peace Bloc) issued a press release on Thursday describing the Israeli decision to regard the Gaza Strip and Enemy Entity and imposing a strict closure as a crime and called on the Israeli government to negotiate with the Palestinians including Hamas.

The movement said by this decision and action Israel is increasing the level of enmity in the region, which will negatively reflect on the Israelis.

“We, too, will eventually pay the price,” said the press release.

“With our own hands we are uniting a million and half people against us, in bitterness and hatred" says Gush Shalom. “The inhabitants of the Gaza Strip are completely dependent on Israel for their most basic livelihood. This complete dependence was created, consciously and deliberately, by all governments of Israel since 1967. The state of Israel cannot now just shrug off its responsibility for the fate of the inhabitants of Gaza.“

The peace group added that this policy will push into hell the population of the Gaza Strip who are already living in a terrible situation and on the verge of starvation, accusing the state of Israel of trampling international law by implementing “indiscriminate collective punishments of a whole civilian population.”

The press release also said this decision will badly affect the negotiations supposedly taking place between the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

The Gaza Strip has been under a very tight siege after Hamas won the Parliamentary elections in January 2006. The seige tightened after the capture of the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in June of 2006.

The Gush Shalom is an Israeli Zionist movement that has been actively involved in nonviolent resistance to the Israeli military occupation with the Palestinians. In 2002 a group of the Gush Shalom, including the two leading figures, Uri Avnery and Adam Keller entered the Palestinian Presidential compound in solidarity with the late President Yasser Arafat as he was under siege in his office.

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