BRUSSELS, June 11, (Agencies): European Union foreign ministers will call on Israel next week to lift a three-year-old blockade of Gaza which they describe as “unacceptable and counterproductive” — including to Israel’s security.
In a draft statement prepared for a meeting on Monday, the foreign ministers will condemn the use of violence during Israel’s operation to stop a flotilla of aid ships reaching Gaza in which Israeli forces killed nine Turks.
They will also call for a “credible, impartial and independent” investigation.
The EU also says it is prepared to contribute to a new mechanism for getting goods in and out of Gaza, which would be based on more regular land access and possibly sea crossings to the coastal territory of 1.5 million people.
“The policy of closure is unacceptable and counterproductive, including from the point of view of Israel’s security,” a copy of the draft seen by Reuters reads.
“The EU calls for a change of policy leading to an unfettered flow of humanitarian aid, commercial goods and persons” into Gaza in line with a UN resolution.
Israel has maintained a blockade on Gaza since mid-2007, when the Hamas militant movement took full control of the territory from its rival Fatah, a year after winning a parliamentary election.
Israel says the measures are designed to prevent arms being smuggled to Hamas and other militant groups.
The EU is the biggest supplier of aid to the Palestinian territories, with member states and the executive European Commission providing about 600 million euros ($722.3
million) a year. The EU is pushing to free up trade with the territories.
In an opinion piece published in European papers on Friday, the foreign ministers of France, Italy and Spain said Israel needed to turn its blockade policy on its head by opening the borders and blocking some listed items, rather than completely closing the borders and allowing in only a few goods.
“To guarantee full security of supplies, we propose that inspections supported and funded by the EU should be put in place there in conditions acceptable to all in order to ensure that consignments bound for Gaza contain neither weapons nor explosives,” the three foreign ministers wrote.
“A similar regime could be considered for maritime consignments bound for Gaza, for example, by deploying EU monitoring teams in Cyprus.”
In their statement on Monday, the foreign ministers of all 27 EU countries will reiterate that a two-state solution — a Palestinian state made up of Gaza and the West Bank living side by side with Israel — remains the only long-term solution to the conflict, in which the peace process has stalled.
“The aim is a peace deal within 24 months as agreed by the Quartet (in March),” the draft statement says, referring to the United States, Russia, the EU and the United Nations, who monitor Middle East peace efforts.
“All efforts to achieve Palestinian reconciliation must be accelerated. Comprehensive peace must include a settlement between Israel and Syria and Israel and Lebanon.”
Support
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met Middle East peace envoy Tony Blair on Friday in an attempt to garner support for Israel’s continued blockade of the Gaza Strip, officials said.
“The aim of the meeting was to enlist international support for the principle that weapons and material used to support fighting will not enter Gaza for Hamas,” Netanyahu’s office said in a statement.
The move came as international opposition to the border closures surged in the wake of Israel’s seizure of an activist aid flotilla last week, during which naval commandos shot dead nine Turkish activists.
Amid mounting pressure Israel has indicated a willingness to ease restrictions on other goods allowed into Gaza, and the statement said Israel wanted “humanitarian and civilian goods to reach the residents by other means.”
Blair, Britain’s former prime minister and the representative of the quartet — the United Nations, the United States, the European Union and Russia — last week called Israel’s blockade “counterproductive.”
Blair said he had been telling Israeli leaders “that because Hamas will get whatever they want through the tunnels, actually this is a counterproductive policy. You stop the legitimate goods coming in legitimately.”
Video
Iara Lee, a US filmmaker and human rights activist who was on board the Turkish ship Mavi Marmara when Israeli commandos attacked it on May 31st, showed reporters late Friday an hour-long new video she managed to smuggle out after she and others were released from an Israeli prison.
She told a press conference “we expected to be deterred from delivering our aid to Gazans, but we did not expect to be attacked savagely by criminals, and by surprise.” Although the Israeli forces confiscated the cameras, laptops and all other electronic equipment on board the ship, she managed to smuggle her exclusive footage by concealing it in her underwear, she said.
Her high-definition, raw and unedited footage of the attack on Mavi Marmara conveyed the mood on the ship and of the passengers on it.
A male adult, wearing the Kuwaiti flag and “Kuwait” on the back of his jacket, was filmed praying peacefully with other passengers. Others were filmed working at their laptops.
The footage showed an instruction sheet in Hebrew with the photos of some passengers the Israeli commandos would not harm. Those included a German Parliamentarian and an archbishop.
Lee wondered how can Israel allege that these passengers laid a trap for Israel, duped the Israeli military, and plotted a lynching? “Do you see a premeditated ambush, or do you see some passengers using items at hand to protect themselves from an unprovoked assault by heavily armed commandos?” she asked.
The footage showed a doctor on board the ship even treated one of the Israeli commandos, as reported by the reputable New York Times newspaper on Friday.
She insisted that the Israeli commandos kept chasing the ship even as the captain was steering it away from the original route to Gaza.
She also noted that the passengers found it mysterious that five of the passengers simply disappeared after the ship docked in Israel and no country claimed them, raising suspicion that they were Israeli spies.
She said she will make the footage available on the Youtube for the whole world to watch, and said she will seek advice from experts in international law in order to sue the Israeli army.
Asked if she would do it again, she said yes but with more nationalities involved and a bigger flotilla.
She blamed her government for always covering up for Israeli “crimes” and found it shameful that the US is the only country which did not condemn the assault.
Lee, also a Brazilian of Korean origin, visited Gaza a few months ago and witnessed the Israeli war on Lebanon during the summer of 2006. “I am familiar with the Israeli crimes,” she said.
Committee
Israel plans to form a committee headed by a former supreme court judge and including US and European observers to probe a deadly May 31 raid on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla, media reported on Friday.
The proposed committee would fall short of demands for an international investigation, and it was not yet clear whether Israel had succeeded in securing US backing for the probe.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was expected to make a formal announcement on Friday or possibly Saturday evening, after the Jewish sabbath, according to Yisrael Hayom, a newspaper considered close to the government.
A government spokesman declined to comment on the reports.
The committee would examine the legality of Israel’s four-year blockade of the Gaza Strip and the decision to seize the activist flotilla loaded with thousands of tonnes of supplies in international waters, media reported.
It will also examine the use of military force in seizing the ships, which were carrying hundreds of pro-Palestinian activists.
Poll
Most Israelis back their rightwing government in the wake of the botched May 31 assault on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla that sparked international outrage, a poll said Friday.
The survey found that 57 percent of Israelis trust their political and military leaders “more or just as before,” while 37 percent “trust (them) less or didn’t trust them before.”
Israel has faced a wave of international criticism of the raid, in which nine Turkish activists were shot dead by naval commandos who were attacked with clubs and knives aboard one of the ships when they boarded them in international waters.
When asked if they were concerned that their country was becoming isolated internationally, 52 percent of respondents answered no and 41 percent said yes.
The poll also found that most Israelis support the blockade of the Hamas-run Gaza Strip, with 59 percent saying it is “more beneficial than harmful” and just 25 percent saying the opposite.
The survey, carried out by the Dialog group for the centre-left Haaretz newspaper, also found that Israelis would vote for an even more right-leaning government if elections were held today.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s hawkish Likud would pick up six seats to win 33 in the 120-member parliament. That compared to 27 for the centrist Kadima, which won the most seats in 2009 elections (28) but was unable to form a government.