EU wants Israel’s Gaza blockade eased

EU Foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said she was open to sending monitors for the Gaza crossings.

The European Union’s top diplomat on Saturday called for the further easing of Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip on the eve of a visit to the Hamas-ruled territory.

“We’ve made it clear that we want to see the potential for the people of Gaza to live an ordinary life,” EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton told reporters in the West Bank town of Ramallah.

“There needs to be an opening of the crossings for both people and goods to flow ing both directions,” she said at a joint news conference with Palestinian prime minister Salam Fayyad,ahead of her Gaza visit.

Story continues below this ad

Israel has taken steps to ease its four-year blockade of the territory in the wake of a deadly May 31 raid on a Gaza-bound aid fleet and now says it allows the import of everything except weapons and dual-use items. It has also begun allowing the import of building materials such as wood and cement for projects under international supervision.

But the limited opening has drawn criticism from the Palestinians and rights groups because it does not include an easing of the movement of people or allow for exports.

“What we all are looking for is to end the suffering of our people in Gaza by lifting the siege and… by having a policy of openness that is clearly defined,” Fayyad old reporters.

“What we have today is 75 per cent less (volume of traffic) that what we had in the first half of 2007… That’s

Story continues below this ad

not what we are looking for,” he said. “The economy of Gaza cannot be sustained only by importation,there needs to be exports.”

Israel has said its naval blockade is necessary to prevent the Islamist Hamas movement ruling Gaza – which is pledged to its destruction – from shipping in military-grade weapons and longe-range rockets.

Ashton said she was open to sending European Union monitors to the crossings but that they would have to work alongside the Western-backed Palestinian Authority,which Hamas ousted in June 2007.