Israel-OPT: maritime aid corridor and seaport scheme is 'woefully slow' response to Gaza aid crisis

Responding to David Cameron saying the UK will participate alongside the USA and others in the creation of a “maritime corridor” for Gaza aid deliveries, Sacha Deshmukh, Amnesty International UK’s Chief Executive, said:

“The creation of a maritime aid ‘corridor’ is a woefully slow response to the dire humanitarian crisis in Gaza and the UK is once again failing to show anywhere near the required level of urgency in how it responds to this calamitous situation.

“With starvation, disease and preventable death increasing every day in Gaza, more life-saving aid is desperately needed but the creation of a temporary port and maritime corridor is a slow and inefficient way of delivering this aid.

“Whether or not the seaport scheme goes ahead, the UK should be redoubling its efforts to press Israel into opening existing land crossings for aid deliveries, while also demanding that Israel end its 17-year-long blockade of Gaza, which is an act of collective punishment.

“Lord Cameron must now break the pattern whereby the UK supports piecemeal measures like the seaport project while failing to lead on the bigger picture - which is that the UK is still failing to support an immediate ceasefire, is still allowing arms transfers to Israel, and is still failing to fully support international justice measures.

“Through its failure to act the UK is increasingly implicated in Israel’s plausible acts of genocide in Gaza as well as Israel’s suffocating system of apartheid against the Palestinians.”