Israel Matzav: UN official calls for end of Gaza 'blockade'

UN official calls for end of Gaza 'blockade'

United Nations Under Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs John Holmes called on Israel to lift its 'blockade' of the Gaza Strip, saying that the 'blockade' has "continuing and growing pernicious and negative consequences" that include a situation of "development going backwards."

Israel imposed import restrictions on Gaza after Hamas captured an Israeli soldier in a cross-border raid in 2006, and strengthened them a year later after Hamas, which calls for Israel’s destruction, seized Gaza. Israel allows daily shipments of food, medicine and other supplies.

Mr. Holmes, who was last here a year ago, discounted the legitimacy of using the blockade to force the release of the soldier, Staff Sgt. Gilad Shalit. But he said that Sergeant Shalit should be released and should have been granted visits by the Red Cross, which Hamas has not allowed.

Mr. Holmes noted that some commerce had found its way around the blockade through smugglers’ tunnels from the Egyptian Sinai, but noted the dangers of a smuggler economy, including conditions in the tunnels, which frequently collapse.

He toured a factory in northern Gaza that turns rubble into limited amounts of cement. He also saw some mud huts that a few Gazans had started to build.

Of course, Holmes made no demands on Egypt and no demands on Hamas - not even an insistence on Shalit's release. He ignores the consequences of allowing terrorists to cross into Israel, ignores the massive amounts of 'humanitarian aid' that enter Gaza daily (they look like they're starving in the picture at the top, don't they?) and ignores the likelihood that Hamas would hijack any building materials for its own building - rocket building.

But then, you wouldn't expect anything else from the UN, would you?

Israel Matzav: UN official calls for end of Gaza 'blockade'