IOA keeps Gaza borders shut for 19th day

The Israeli war minister, Ehud Barak, decided at an early hour on Sunday to retain all Gaza Strip”s commercial crossings closed for the 19th consecutive day at the pretext that resistance missiles were still being fired at Israeli targets adjacent to the Strip.

The Hebrew radio quoted Israeli officials as claiming that preparations were under way to open the crossings but the fall of more missiles led to their continued closure.

Dr. Ekmeleddin İhsanoğlu, the secretary general of the organization of Islamic conference, severely criticized the international community for remaining silent towards the Israeli occupation authority”s practices against Gaza.

He urged the world and the quartet committee to act against the Israeli “intransigence”, and to pressure the IOA into ending its “oppressive siege” of Gaza.

The secretary general described Israel”s siege as a crime against humanity.

Meanwhile, Dr. Arafat Madi, the director of the European Campaign to End the Siege on Gaza, strongly denounced the “serious” statement by Javier Solana, the High Representative for the EU Common Foreign and Security Policy, that said the EU had exerted what it could to end the siege on Gaza and could not do anything more in this regard.

He said that such a position was “unacceptable” and ran contrary to humanitarian ethics other than giving the Israelis the green light to continue to commit more crimes against the one and a half million besieged Palestinians in Gaza.

Madi asked the European countries, which respect and defend human rights, to reject Solana”s statement and immediately act to lift the siege on Gaza.

For her part, MP Mona Mansour, described the IOA aggression on the Palestinian people as “barbaric”, especially in the Gaza Strip.

She said in a press release that the IOA was trying to sidestep its internal crisis through destroying Gaza, which reflected its “sadism” and “savagery”.

The Hamas MP expressed surprise at the local and international silence towards the tightening siege on Gaza, which threatens a real catastrophe.

The Nablus-based lawmaker said that the state of inter-Palestinian division had encouraged the IOA to escalate its aggression on Gaza.