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Israel should not be commended for its partial easing of the harsh blockade it has imposed against the Palestinians in Gaza.
Neither should it be applauded for its recent gesture of allowing a shipment of fuel. Instead, the world community should be held responsible for the suffering of the people in Gaza.
Israel's allowance of the delivery of fuel, some medicine and food as a one-time shipment is not sufficient to sustain the livelihood of the 1.5 population in Gaza. Aid organisations estimated that the supplies allowed in would last for no more than three days.
This means that the distribution of food provided by various United Nations agencies to the more than one million Palestinian refugees would be suspended yet again.
"The Israeli announcement of supplying Gaza with more fuel does not mean solving the crisis in Gaza. The real crisis of our Palestinian people is the continuing siege on the Gaza strip," said Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri.
The approach that Israel has adopted in dealing with the situation in Gaza should be condemned on the widest scale. In this day and age, collective punishment should not be tolerated either as a policy or practice.
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