Londoners box selves in to protest Israel blockade of Gaza

Scores of activists have staged a symbolic protest in London against Tel Aviv’s brutal blockade of the Gaza Strip, which has also recently been the target of ruthless Israeli military strikes.

The protesters placed small boxes in front of the House of Parliament on Thursday and clambered into them to highlight the plight of the civilians trapped in Gaza.

Many of the protesters also brought their small children to cram them inside the plastic squares.

The protest gathering in Parliament Square was organized by Oxfam, which is a member of the Disasters Emergency Committee delivering urgent aid and trying to begin reconstruction in Gaza.

The charity has warned that full recovery from the catastrophe will be impossible unless Israel ends its apartheid blockade on the coastal enclave.

Oxfam spokeswoman Lisa Rutherford, who attended the protest, said it wants to draw attention to the plight of the Palestinians in the besieged enclave.

“We wanted to illustrate that people are trapped by the blockade. We thought the best demonstration of that would be to have individuals… in boxes to show that restriction,” she said.

Nishant Pandey, the head of Oxfam in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, said, “The international community will be guilty of a dereliction of duty if it stands by and watches the blockade continue to impose further misery on Palestinians in Gaza.

“….Punishing everyone in Gaza will not achieve lasting peace and security for either Palestinians or Israelis. Enough is enough – the blockade must be lifted now,” said Nishant Pandey.

The charity estimates that 80 percent of the people in Gaza are currently reliant on aid; and essentials such as power, and clean water are scarce and sewage processing services are almost non-existent.

The Israeli regime has imposed a siege on the Gaza Strip since June 2007, because of which the standards of living there has deteriorated markedly. The siege has also led to unprecedented levels of unemployment, and unrelenting poverty in the Palestinian coastal enclave.

Meanwhile, more than 1,960 Palestinians, including 470 children, have so far been killed and over 10,100 others injured in the Israeli military aggression against Gaza, which began on July 8.

Palestinian resistance movement Hamas stresses that any deal with the Israel regime to end its latest war on the impoverished territory must include Palestinians’ demand to end the Gaza blockade.

The over-one-month-long invasion of Gaza has resulted in the destruction of over 10,000 houses and “a large part” of Gaza’s industry. Furthermore, almost half of Gaza’s agricultural lands have been destroyed, leaving nearly 300,000 people without a source of income.

According to UN estimates, more than 500,000 people, a third of Gaza’s population, are displaced within the besieged enclave as a result of Israelis’ warmongering policies.