Ramallah, 27-10-07: PNI leader, Dr. Mustafa Barghouthi MP, denounced as pure hypocrisy today’s promises by Israeli PM Ehud Olmert that power cuts to Gaza would not cause a humanitarian crisis.
Dr. Barghouthi explained that the Gaza Strip was plunged into an engineered humanitarian crisis in early 2006, caused mainly by crippling Israeli border closures, military attacks and an economic embargo. The situation has been worsening ever since, a process consolidated by Israel’s declaration of Gaza as a ‘hostile entity’ in September 2007.
He said that, among other things, these closures were severely restricting the access of tens of thousands of patients to medicines; forcing many operating theatres to shut due to the lack of anaesthetics and other essential medical supplies; and preventing the travel of chronic patients requiring life-saving treatment abroad.
Barghouthi described these measures “a gross form of collective punishment that violates all the protections afforded to civilians under occupation by international law.”
He added that this situation was being exacerbated by daily Israeli attacks and killings, the latest of which has left 7 Gazans dead since Friday.
As Israel tries to pose as a willing partner for peace in the run-up to the US-sponsored November meeting, Barghouthi stressed that such attacks and methods of collective punishment reveal the stark absence of any true Israeli commitment to peace.
Dr. Barghouthi called on Palestinian officials to exert every effort to reverse the deteriorating situation in Gaza, and insisted that the international community must put an end to the blockade of the Strip which is having devastating consequences on the Palestinian people in Gaza. “This illegal collective punishment must stop” he said.