European Union pressures Israel to lift blockade on Gaza

             European leaders urged Israel over the weekend to lift its blockade of Gaza, as they drafted plans to revive and expand the European Union’s role in monitoring goods heading into the area. On Monday, the EU Foreign Affairs Council plans to debate the matter. Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said at a joint press conference with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas Saturday that his country wants to “forge a strong common position” with EU countries in the face of the humanitarian situation in Gaza. Zapatero said that at Monday’s Council meeting, Spain’s foreign minister, Miguel Angel Moratinos, would propose that the EU deploy “all its political and diplomatic capability” to end the Gaza blockade. On Friday, the foreign ministers from France, Italy and Spain wrote an op-ed in the International Herald Tribune in which they joined in the call. They were careful to insist that captive IDF soldier Gilad Schalit, held by Hamas in Gaza since June 2006, be released. The ministers also acknowledged Israel’s security concerns: “Lifting the blockade,” they said, “must not go hand-in-hand with a resurgence in arms trafficking and an influx of terrorist groups in Gaza.” The quantity and variety of goods entering Gaza must increase, they said, offering as one possibility a proposal by Quartet Middle East envoy Tony Blair. Blair has “suggested a shift from a logic of denial of supplies to Gaza, with some exceptions, to a logic based on general authorization, with the exception of banned products.” (08,01)