The blockade of the Gaza Strip is a crime against humanity that must be halted.  The policy of stranglehold blockade on the Gaza Strip has escalated, entering a catastrophic phase with the total shutdown of electricity, with all aspects of daily life grinding to a halt, in addition to the complete closure of all the border crossings, turning the area into a giant prison.

The blockade inflicted upon the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip is an inhuman crime that violates all international laws and conventions. It involves the collective punishment of 1.5 million Palestinian civilians, denying them the right to free movement, and the entry of food, humanitarian, and medical supplies. Conditions in Gaza have taken a turn for the worst, and are extremely perilous, especially with the loss of electricity to homes, and civil and educational establishments. Hospitals have been paralysed, unable to perform surgical procedures, or care for critically ill patients. The hospitals in the Gaza Strip have sent out urgent messages warning that patients in intensive care, and babies in incubators, are now at risk of death—en masse, in the coming few days, once dwindling fuel reserves for generating electricity run out. On the other hand, the features of a horrific environmental and public health disaster in the making have begun to appear, with raw sewage spilling out onto the streets, as pumps stopped working. This will certainly lead to the spread of epidemics on an appalling scale through the refugee camps and towns bursting with people, causing a huge health catastrophe.

What aggravates an already dangerous situation, and adds to the tragedy, is that the Israeli army of occupation continues, unrestrained, to spill the blood of tens of Palestinian civilians, after the Israeli government gave its military forces free hand in escalating the aggression, bombardments, and massacres of Palestinian civilians.

It is not acceptable that the free world as spectator in face of this naked aggression on the human right to life, and access to its fundamental essentials. Any delay in coming to the aid of the Palestinian people, and halting the humanitarian catastrophe that awaits due to the Israeli aggression, would only increase the feelings of hopelessness, despair, and disaffection with the grand slogans lifted by today’s civilisation. Furthermore, it deepens the feelings of hatred and animosity on a wide scale in the region, which will not only deepen the crisis, but widen its circle.

The Muslim Association of Britain as it watches with grave concern the unfolding events in Palestine and the region:

1. Strongly condemns the continuing Israeli aggression against our people in the Gaza Strip. It also condemns the policy of collective punishment through closure of the border crossings, preventing the passage of food and medical supplies, and the imprisonment of more than 1.5 million Palestinians within the Gaza Strip in intolerable humanitarian conditions. The Muslim Association of Britain calls for the reopening of the crossings into the Gaza Strip immediately and without delay.
2. Demands that EU member States intervene immediately to stop the humanitarian crime being committed in the Gaza Strip. We are confident that Europe, with its international weight and credibility, and its ties to the Middle East region will be able to bring effective pressure to bear on the Israelis to end the aggression.
3. Call upon our government in the United Kingdom to end its silence regarding the unjust blockade inflicted upon the Gaza Strip, and to work at preventing the Israeli side from committing further killing, persecution, bombardment, and inflicting hunger upon Palestinian civilians.
4. Implores the institutions of British and European civic society, to take the initiative—now before it is too late—in launching immediate humanitarian campaigns for the Gaza Strip, and promote awareness of the suffering of the Palestinians under siege, and to put pressure on the occupation authorities to lift the blockade, and allow entry of urgent aid to civilians who face being murdered collectively.
5. Invites the governments of Arab and Islamic countries, especially those neighbouring Palestine, to shoulder their historic responsibility towards their brethren and families in Gaza, and abandon the position of silence and powerlessness. We implore the Egyptian government, especially, and President Muhamad Hosni Mubarak, personally, by opening the Rafah border crossing, which represents the only communication between Gaza and the outside world.
6. Demands that the Israeli occupation government, embroiled in war crimes against the Palestinian people, to be punished for the unjust blockade it is inflicting, and the bloody massacres committed by its military forces, and the horrific bombardment of civilians. No doubt that exempting war criminals from accountability and punishment for their acts, sends the wrong messages in our world that aspires to security and justice, and values human rights.
7. We implore all the Palestinian factions and forces to forget their differences, and exert all efforts to heal the rift between the people of one nation and unify efforts to confront the continuing aggression of the occupier.