Calling Gaza a "prison" and a "ghetto," European Union parliamentarians harshly condemned Israeli actions there in a special session held in Brussels on Wednesday.
During the hour-long, heated debate in advance of a Thursday vote on a resolution, parliamentarians, as well as EU officials, called on Israel to open the Gaza borders to alleviate the growing humanitarian crisis in the impoverished area where 1.1 million of the 1.4 m. population are dependant on the international donations for basic food supplies.
In one of the more impassioned speeches, Belgian MEP Veronique De Keyser called Gaza a "ghetto" where "people are dying little by little with cameras trained on them."
While the IDF is working on a proposal to close the borders between Gaza and Israel in favor of Egyptian crossings, EU parliamentarians called on Israel to find a solution to the problem. In particular, it urged Israel to live up to its commitment to ensure pedestrian passage at Rafah and full commercial movement in Karni.
The Hamas takeover of the Gaza Strip in June forced the closure of the main commercial crossing into Israel at Karni and the pedestrian one into Egypt at Rafah. The third major crossing into Israel at Erez has been opened for limited pedestrian traffic.
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