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Now stop starving the Gazans

Yossi Alpher, former director of the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University, co-edits bitterlemons.org.

He writes in an op-ed piece in the IHT "Now stop starving the Gazans" as follows:

"As prospects for a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas increase, it is vital to ensure that the issue of economic warfare against Gaza is not neglected.

For the past year and a half, Israel, with the full backing and encouragement of the quartet of Middle East mediators (the European Union, the United States, the United Nations and Russia), as well as Egypt, Saudi Arabia and even the West Bank-based PLO, has maintained an economic blockade on the Gaza Strip.

Generally it has allowed into Gaza only the equivalent of the UN minimum number of calories required daily for subsistence, multiplied by the 1.5 million or so population of the Gaza Strip, along with minimal medical supplies and fuel.

This economic-warfare strategy against Gaza has failed totally; indeed, it has proven counterproductive. Now is the right time for all involved to reconsider its usefulness and thereby raise a major contribution to long-term cease-fire efforts."

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