Middle East Online (MEO) - NDHF Net

  
LARNACA, Cyprus - A group of European lawmakers said Tuesday they will petition the European Union to suspend a preferential trade agreement with Israel because of Israel’s "cruel" blockade of Gaza.

Lord Nazir Ahmed, a member of Britain's House of Lords, said Gaza's 1.4 million residents face a dire situation because the siege has deprived them of medical supplies.

Ahmed was among 11 lawmakers from Britain, Ireland, Switzerland and Italy who sailed Saturday to Gaza from Cyprus on a yacht owned by the US-based Free Gaza activist group, in defiance of an Israeli blockade. Israel's navy did not block the vessel, Dignity, which made its third run to Gaza since August. It returned to Cyprus on Tuesday after the activists delivered one ton of medicine and hospital equipment.

"Israel is contravening international law ... that's the real issue," Ahmed said.

Clare Short, a former member of the British Cabinet, said Israel was punishing Gaza residents for voting Hamas to power.

Free Gaza organizer Greta Berlin said the Dignity also brought eight Palestinians out of Gaza, including four students pursuing studies in Greece, France, Germany and Spain, and an elderly man traveling to Germany for treatment after suffering a stroke in February.

Israel, which wants to crush any Palestinian liberation movement, responded to Hamas's win in the elections with sanctions, and almost completely blockaded the impoverished coastal strip after Hamas seized power in 2007, although a ‘lighter’ siege had already existed before.

Human rights groups slammed Israel’s siege of Gaza, branding it “collective punishment.”

A group of Arab international lawyers and human rights activists had accused Israel on of committing "genocide" through its crippling blockade of the Strip.

Gaza is still considered under Israeli occupation as Israel controls air, sea and land access to the Gaza.

The Rafah crossing with Egypt, Gaza's sole border crossing that bypasses Israel, rarely opens as Egypt is under immense US and Israeli pressure to keep the crossing shut.

Fatah has little administrative say in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, and has no power in Arab east Jerusalem, both of which were illegally occupied by Israel in 1967.

Israel also currently occupies the Lebanese Shabaa Farms and the Syrian Golan Heights.