JERUSALEM — As Israel ordered a slight easing Wednesday of its blockade of the Gaza Strip, McClatchy Newspapers obtained an Israeli government document that describes the blockade not as a security measure but as “economic warfare” against the Islamist group Hamas, which rules the Palestinian territory.
Israel imposed severe restrictions on Gaza in June 2007 after Hamas took control of the coastal enclave after winning elections there the previous year, and the government has long said that the aim of the blockade is to stem the flow of weapons to militants in Gaza.
Israel expanded its list of items allowed into Gaza to include soda, juice, jam, spices, shaving cream, potato chips, cookies and candy, said Palestinian liaison official Raed Fattouh, who coordinates the flow of goods into Gaza with Israel.
Last week, after Israeli commandos killed nine volunteers on a Turkish-organized Gaza aid flotilla, Israel again said its aim was to stop the flow of terrorist arms.
However, in response to a lawsuit by Gisha, an Israeli human-rights group, the Israeli government explained the blockade as an exercise of the right of economic warfare.
“A country has the right to decide that it chooses not to engage in economic relations or to give economic assistance to the other party to the conflict, or that it wishes to operate using ‘economic warfare,’ ” the government said.
McClatchy obtained the government’s written statement from Gisha, the Legal Center for Freedom of Movement, which sued to get information about the blockade. Israel’s high court upheld the suit, and the government delivered its statement earlier this year.
Sari Bashi, the director of Gisha, said the documents prove that Israel isn’t imposing its blockade for its stated reasons, but rather as collective punishment for the Palestinian population of Gaza.
The Israeli government took an additional step Wednesday and said the economic warfare is intended to achieve a political goal.
A government spokesman, who couldn’t be named as a matter of policy, told McClatchy that authorities will continue to ease the blockade but “could not lift the embargo altogether as long as Hamas remains in control” of Gaza.
President Barack Obama, who met with Mahmoud Abbas, the head of the Palestinian Authority, at the White House on Wednesday, said the situation in Gaza is “unsustainable.” He pledged an additional $400 million in aid for housing, school construction and roads to improve daily life for Palestinians, of which at least $30 million is earmarked for Gaza.
