Khudari: Int’l community must rescind economic sanctions on Palestinians

Chairman of the Siege Popular Committee Against Siege in the Gaza Strip, Dr. Jamal Al-Khudari, has welcomed Saturday the decision of the International Food Program to increase humanitarian assistance to the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip.The decision of the UN body came after a series of warnings issued by humanitarian organizations that the Gaza Strip was on the brink of real human catastrophe after seven months of crushing economic sanctions unjustly imposed by the USA and Israel and their allies on 1.5 million Palestinian citizens living there.

In a press statement he issued Saturday and a copy of which was obtained by the PIC, Khudari urged the IFP and other UN bodies and human rights and legal institutions to work hard for rescinding the repressive embargo while extending humanitarian assistance to the Palestinian citizens in Gaza Strip.”The increase in the humanitarian assistance will positively and actively affect morale of the Palestinian people who had and still are suffering a lot as a result of the economic embargo”, underlined Khudari, explaining that tens of Palestinian citizens died after Israel refused to grant them exit permits to receive medical treatment outside the besieged Gaza Strip.Making it clear and sound to the international community, Khudari announced that the unjust economic siege had taken its toll on the Palestinian people”s lives and economy and it badly affected all aspects of life of the Palestinian people.

“There are now around 1,500 Palestinian patients prone to death due to the lack of medicine and proper treatment after Gaza hospitals ran short of basic medical supplies in addition to the fact that the health condition of thousands others were seriously deteriorating after medical equipment in Gaza hospitals stopped working due to the blockade”, Khudari pointed out.He also underscored that the sanctions had increased the unemployment rate in the tiny Strip, thus, forcing hundreds of thousands of Palestinian families to live under the poverty line.Moreover, Khudari warned that “the blockade has indeed produced an unprecedented real human catastrophe in Gaza Strip”.