President Barack Obama is advocating sharply limiting Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip in the aftermath of the botched Israeli naval raid.
Fallout from the raid is straining US and Israeli relations with allies around the world.
“The situation in Gaza is unsustainable,” Obama said today as he met with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in the Oval Office. He said the attention of the world is on the problem because of the “tragedy” of the Israeli raid that killed nine people trying to bring in supplies.
Obama said Israel’s broad blockade on goods entering Gaza should be narrowed so that arms are kept out, but not items needed for the Palestinians’ daily life and economic development.
In connection with Abbas’ visit, the White House announced a $400 million aid package for Gaza and the West Bank.
A State Department spokesman, P.J. Crowley, said the money represented specific allocations that already had been budgeted for the Palestinians, some of it fulfilling a $900 million commitment Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton made last year. Projects announced Wednesday included $240 million for mortgage assistance in the West Bank and $10 million to build five new schools in Gaza.
Construction goods are among items forbidden for delivery to the Gaza Strip by the Israelis. They contend the Palestinian enclave’s militant Hamas leaders would use the supplies for facilities that could strengthen Hamas’ military capabilities.
“The key here is making sure that Israel’s security needs are met, but that the needs of people in Gaza are also met,” said Obama.
“So if we can get a new conceptual framework … it seems to me that we should be able to take what has been a tragedy and turn it into an opportunity to create a situation where lives in Gaza are actually, directly improved.”
The approach marked a shift although it stopped well short of meeting international calls for an end to the 3-year-old blockade, which Israel says is needed to keep arms away from the Hamas movement that controls Gaza. Critics say the blockade is ineffective and causes undue suffering. Obama said the United States would discuss the new approach with European leaders, Egypt, Israel and the Palestinian Authority.
Abbas welcomed the $400 million aid package, which will go for things like creating jobs and improving access to drinking water, but called for going farther on the blockade.
“We also see the need to lift the Israeli siege of the Palestinian people, the need to open all the crossings and the need to let building material and humanitarian material and all the necessities go into the Palestinian people,” said Abbas, whose actual influence over Gaza is slight, since his forces were routed when Hamas took over the area in 2007. He and his more moderate Fatah movement lead the West Bank, the other Palestinian territory in Israel.
Be the first to comment