GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — Israeli peace groups yesterday attempted a symbolic breach of an economic blockade of the Gaza Strip with truckloads of essential relief supplies.
More than a thousand Israeli demonstrators gathered outside the Erez crossing point on the Israeli side, demanding the Israeli government end the blockade.
In the cold rain, protesters marched along the wall separating Israel from Gaza holding banners that read, “Break down the walls of the siege” and “End the strangulation of Gaza.”
A relief convoy approached the Erez crossing filled with 4 tons of items such as water, rice, flour and cement, now scarce in Gaza. A separate truck hauled 25 water-purification systems to be installed in schools. Israel’s cut in fuel supplies has caused water and sanitation systems in Gaza to collapse.
Demonstrators brought family-relief packages containing powered milk and school supplies, many enclosed with a personal letter.
Israeli authorities did not permit the relief aid to reach the Palestinian side. The supplies are being stored in a warehouse at a kibbutz near the Gaza border while the groups prepare to petition the Israeli Supreme Court to gain the permission to get them into Gaza.
Palestinians in Gaza have suffered widespread blackouts and shortages of food and other provisions since Israel sealed all crossing points from its territory last week in response to escalating rocket attacks.
There has been a sharp increase in the number of rockets fired from Gaza into Sderot and other border Israeli towns since the Islamist militant group Hamas took control of Gaza in June. Israel responded by blocking supplies of essentials to the territory.
“However bad the suffering is of the residents of Sderot, Ashkelon and the kibbutzim in the area under the barrage of Qassam missiles, it is in no way a justification for a cruel siege, which severely harms a million and a half civilians,” said Adam Keller, spokesman for Israeli peace organization Gush Shalom.
The relief aid has been supplied by a coalition of Israeli peace groups, including Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions and Physicians for Human Rights.
Negotiations with the Israeli army are under way to let the supplies enter, Mr. Keller said. A human rights group — Adallah, the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel — plans to petition the Israeli Supreme Court to gain permission for Israeli relief to enter Gaza.
Shir Shuzik, 20, a university student from Sderot, stood on a makeshift stage made of sacks of rice and flour.
“I have felt the tension living under Qassam [rocket] fire for seven years, but I know the people of Gaza are also suffering,” she said, advocating that “people on both sides must make contact on the grass-roots level to make peace, rather than depend on our governments.”
Uri Avnery, a former member of the Israeli parliament and well-known sympathizer of the Palestinian cause, spoke to the crowd.
“The Rafah wall [at the Gaza border with Egypt] has been broken like the Berlin Wall was broken. We must make peace with all Palestinian parties, including Hamas,” he said.
A Knesset member, Jamal Zahalka of the National Democratic Assembly, an Israeli Arab party, said: “The government is concealing from the public that there have been several offers for a cease-fire from the Palestinian side that were rejected by Israel.”
A parallel Palestinian demonstration, organized by the Palestinian International Campaign to End the Siege on Gaza, was held in Gaza City, drawing several hundred protesters.
“The aim of the demonstration is to join the hands of Israeli and Palestinian peace activists who want to end the siege and all forms of violence,” said head of the campaign, Eyad Sarraj, a political analyst and prominent psychiatrist in Gaza.
“The most decisive factor in breaking the siege will be Israeli public opinion.”
The group asserts that the rocket fire, which serves only Israel’s interests, must be stopped.
Human rights activists, academics and businesspeople from Gaza formed a human circle of banners that read, “No movement, no life,” and “Humanity, not humiliation; peace, not punishment.”
Mustafa Masoud, owner of two major construction companies in Gaza and board member of the Palestinian Businessmen’s Association, stood in the circle. His factory doors have been closed since June because of the lack of raw materials.
Farmer Saed Dahdouh, a father of seven, attended, representing the Committee to Protect the Trees.
“There are no seeds, no fertilizer, since farming materials are not allowed to enter Gaza,” he said. “The siege has devastated my family.”
The demonstrators were unable to approach Erez from the Palestinian side after the Israeli army heightened security measures in response to the breach of the Gaza border with Egypt at Rafah on Wednesday, which led to tens of thousands of Palestinians entering Egypt to buy essentials.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.