Israel inflicting collective punishment on Palestinians by halting mail from/to Gaza, says Euro-Med

An independent international human rights group has lambasted as a “collective punishment” against Palestinian people a “blanket ban” that Israel has imposed on mail delivery to and from the besieged Gaza Strip since the regime’s recent brutal war on the impoverished enclave.

The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor made the comments on Thursday in a protest letter to the Universal Postal Union (UPU), a specialized agency of the United Nations that coordinates postal policies among member states.

The letter, according to a report by Palestine's official Wafa news agency, was sent after the Tel Aviv regime recently imposed more draconian restrictions on the besieged Gaza Strip that brought postal services to an abrupt halt.

“Israel’s arbitrary and punitive suspension of mail delivery to/from Gaza represents an unacceptable and illegal act of collective punishment against a civilian population,” said Euro-Med Monitor's Chairman Ramy Abdu in a statement.

Tel Aviv launched a bombing campaign against the blockaded Gaza Strip on May 10, following Palestinian retaliation against violent raids on worshipers at al-Aqsa Mosque and the regime’s plans to force a number of Palestinian families out of their homes at the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of East Jerusalem al-Quds.

Apparently caught off guard by the unprecedented barrage of rockets from Gaza, Israel announced a unilateral ceasefire on May 21, which Palestinian resistance movements accepted with Egyptian mediation.

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The Geneva-based rights monitor’s letter, addressed to UPU’s Director General Bishar Abdirahman Hussein, explained in detail how Israel moved to further tighten its 14-year-long blockade and impose more restrictions on what it allows in and out of the Gaza Strip since the regime’s recent war against the impoverished enclave.

“Amongst these restrictions imposed by Israel is a blanket ban on mail delivery to and from Gaza through the Israeli-controlled border crossing Erez – the crossing from which Israel controls virtually all access to/from Gaza,” the letter further read.

It stressed that such an abrupt halt in mail delivery has “harmed numerous people, including those waiting to receive their passports from foreign embassies in Israel or the occupied West Bank to travel for humanitarian purposes, such as studies abroad, family unifications or receiving locally-unavailable medical treatment.”

The UPU’s letter also revealed that Israel has “for long maintained unnecessary and punitive restrictions” on postal services in the blockaded Gaza, allowing only paper mail in and out of the densely populated region.

In conclusion, the rights monitor strongly called on the Tel Aviv regime to remove the restriction on postal delivery as it severely violates the “basic rights” of Gazans and infringes their “livelihoods and family life.”

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According to Gaza’s Health Ministry, at least 260 Palestinians were killed in the Israeli offensive, including 66 children and 39 women, and 1948 others were wounded. Israel’s bombardment also brought widespread devastation to the already impoverished territory.

The Gaza Strip has been under an Israeli blockade since June 2007. It has caused a decline in the standard of living as well as unprecedented levels of unemployment and unrelenting poverty.

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