UN agencies, NGOs protest Israel's closure of Gaza border

United Nations agencies and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have called on Israel to immediately re-open the border into Gaza to all their members, protesting "in the strongest terms" against a closure that they said crippled their aid efforts for 1.2 million Palestinians and was in direct contravention of international law.

"We fully respect Israel's security concerns," the six UN agencies and 12 NGOs said yesterday in a joint statement. "But we firmly reject the clear implication of the measures imposed at the Erez crossing for the last month that UN officials and international aid workers constitute a security threat to the State of Israel or its citizens."

Noting that Israel partially lifted the closure for a few staff on Saturday, the statement added: "We call on the Israeli authorities to reopen the Erez crossing immediately, on a 24 hour-a-day basis, for all international staff members of all United Nations organizations and of all other international humanitarian and development agencies operating in the Gaza Strip."

It said the closure had made the operations of all UN agencies, NGOs and other humanitarian and development organizations unreasonably difficult, inefficient and costly, adding: "If these new restrictions persist, a number of international and non-governmental humanitarian organizations may be forced to stop their operations in the Gaza Strip."

Saying it was not clear why Israel had imposed the "unprecedented" restrictions, the 18 organizations declared: "The restrictions are violations of applicable international law and, in many cases, bilateral agreements between the Government of Israel and the agencies concerned."

They noted that they went against undertakings on humanitarian access given in August by Israel to Secretary-General Kofi Annan's Personal Humanitarian Envoy, Catherine Bertini, concluding: "We are further disturbed that these restrictions come at a time when the Government of Israel is promising publicly to ease the plight of the population in the occupied Palestinian territory and to support humanitarian relief efforts.

"If the Government of Israel is serious about wishing to support our humanitarian efforts, these restrictions should be lifted immediately."

The signatories included the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), the UN World Food Programme (WFP), the UN Development Programme (UNDP), the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the World Health Organization (WHO), the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), Médecins sans Frontières, Médecins du Monde, Pharmaciens sans Frontières - Comité International, OXFAM GB, Care International, MERLIN, Enfants Refugiés du Monde, Solidaridad Internacional, Centro Regionale d'Intervento per la Cooperazione (CRIC), Movement for Peace, Disarmament and Liberty, UNA International Service (UK) and World Vision.