40 UN, NGO organizations call for lifting siege on Gaza

40 UN, NGO organizations call for lifting siege on Gaza

40 UN and non-governmental organizations have called on the Israeli occupation authority in a joint statement read on Wednesday at the UNRWA office in occupied Jerusalem to lift the siege on the Gaza Strip that has been in effect for more than two years.


 


They called for allowing freedom of entry all humanitarian assistance to the Strip and for reviving the economic life in the besieged Strip.


 


The organizations warned that the siege was threatening more than 1.5 million people especially women, children and the elderly people.


 


The UN office for humanitarian affairs had criticized the Israeli restrictions on the trade traffic between Gaza and the outside world, adding that they were obstructing the reconstruction of Gaza following the Israeli war.


 


In Gaza, the government committee to break the siege declared support for the international movement to open the Rafah border crossing with Egypt.


 


Hamdy Shaat, the chairman of the committee, said in a press release that activists of that movement were daily picketing at the Egyptian side of the Rafah crossing since 9/6/2009 asking to enter the Strip. They include international sympathizes from the USA, Italy, and France, he elaborated.