Ireland says Israeli siege on Gaza medieval

Ireland blasts the Israeli siege of the Gaza Strip as “medieval,” urging the European Union to pressure Tel Aviv into easing the restrictions.

“I genuinely believe that the medieval siege conditions being imposed on the people of Gaza are unacceptable,” wrote Irish Foreign Minister Micheal Martin, in an opinion piece published in the International Herald Tribune.

The already-impoverished coastal sliver has endured almost three years of an Israeli-imposed blockade which has deprived it of its most direly-needed requirements.

The siege has pushed some 80 percent of Gaza’s nearly 1.5-million population below the poverty line, leaving more than half of them jobless.

Martin, who was to the enclave last week, added that “the tragedy of Gaza is that it is fast in danger of becoming a tolerated humanitarian crisis.”

The situation, he said, “is proving extremely difficult to remedy or ameliorate due to the blockade and the wider ramifications of efforts to try and achieve political progress in the Middle East.”

The siege lasted during the December 2008-January 2009 Israeli bombardment of Gaza which lasted for three weeks and killed more than 1,400 Palestinians.

“The European Union and the international community simply must do more to increase the pressure for the ending of the blockade and the opening of the border crossings to normal commercial and humanitarian traffic.”