Amnesty report slams Israel on treatment of Palestinians

Despite Israel's claim that the humanitarian situation in Gaza is "stable" and that it is transferring an adequate supply of food, medicines and equipment into the Strip, Amnesty International claims in its 2010 report that the blockade, imposed in June 2007, "continued to cut off almost 1.5million Palestinians from the rest of the world, isolating them in Gaza's cramped confines, and greatly limiting the import of essential goods and supplies. "This gratuitous exacerbation of the privations already suffered by the inhabitants of Gaza seriously hampered their access to health care and education and destroyed industries and livelihoods. Imposed ostensibly to deter rocket-firing into Israel by Palestinian armed groups, the blockade was nothing less than an outrage–the imposition of collective punishment on the entire population of Gaza," said the report. "All too predictably, it hit hardest on the most vulnerable–children, the elderly, the homeless and the sick, including those in need of medical treatment outside Gaza–not the armed militants responsible for rocket firing," Amnesty claimed.