One month
after the deadly attack on the humanitarian flottilla heading to Gaza, the
Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) releases a new position paper on the
illegality of the closure imposed by Israel on the Gaza Strip and its alleged
‘easing’.

PCHR
remarks that the closure is illegal and constitutes a form of collective
punishment of the civilian population of Gaza. One month after the killing of
nine people and injuries of many more passengers of the humanitarian convoy,
which has focused the world’s attention on the suffering of the population of
Gaza, nothing has really changed.

PCHR
emphasizes that in order to put an end to the severe crisis that is affecting
Gaza a dramatic change in Israeli policy is needed. The illegal closure has
caused not only a humanitarian crisis but a crisis of human rights and human
dignity of the population of the Gaza Strip.

Measures
announced recently to ease the blockade are vague, purely cosmetic and fail to
deal with the root causes of the crisis, which can only be addressed by an
immediate complete lifting of the closure, including lifting the travel ban
into and out of the Gaza Strip and the ban on exports.

Download the: PCHR Position Paper on the Easing of the Closure of the Gaza Strip (PDF)