Israel’s Netanyahu holds firm on Gaza blockade…
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed on Sunday there would be no let-up in Israel‘s much-criticised blockade of Gaza, warning that the ceasefire with the territory’s Hamas rulers remained fragile.
“We are being asked to ease the living conditions of the population and allow goods and equipment in, but we have other priorities in the Gaza Strip,” a senior official quoted Netanyahu as telling a cabinet meeting.
“We do not want to strengthen Hamas, not by allowing them to rebuild their defences,” he said.
Israel tightened a crippling blockade on the Gaza Strip after Hamas, an Islamist group pledged to the destruction of the Jewish state, violently seized power in the territory in June 2007.
Since then Israel has allowed only essential humanitarian goods to enter the impoverished land of 1.5 million people where the majority depend on foreign aid.
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