Middle East Monitor / June 23, 2022
The Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement Hamas yesterday hailed the remarks of UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric in which he called for the full lifting of Israel’s siege on the Gaza Strip.
On Tuesday, Dujarric called for the complete removal of the Israeli blockade of Gaza, in line with a 2009 UN Security Council resolution.
In a press conference held at the UN headquarters in New York, Dujarric said: “Today is the 15th anniversary of the beginning of the blockade in the Gaza Strip.”
“Due to poverty, high unemployment and other factors caused by the blockade, about 80 per cent of Gaza’s population depends on humanitarian aid.”
The UN official pointed out that only sustainable political solutions can alleviate the pressure on the people of Gaza. “Efforts should be continued to reach a compromise between all Palestinian political groups,” he said.
“This year, $510 million is needed to provide food, water, sanitation and health care for 1.6 million people, and we now have only 25 per cent of that,” Dujarric said.
Israel imposed a stifling blockade on the Gaza Strip in 2007, limiting the type and amount of goods entering the Strip and banning Palestinians from exiting it.
Hamas said the UN official’s remarks reveal once again the extent of the suffering of the more than two million Palestinians as a result of this unjust siege that clearly violates international law and human rights.
“We call on the UN and all human rights and international bodies to take all these statements and reports seriously, work to intensify efforts to end the suffering of our Palestinian people and to pressure the Zionist occupation to lift its siege,” Hamas said.
It concluded its statement stressing on the necessity to “end the policy of apartheid practiced by the Zionist occupation against our Palestinian people.”
