In a bid to help the Israeli government in their siege of the Gaza Strip, Egyptian officials have agreed to cut off supplies to towns in the Egyptian Sinai peninsula that border the Gaza Strip. Israel has cut off the Gaza Strip from the outside world for nearly two years, which has caused severe suffering for the civilian population of Gaza. International and Israeli humanitarian organizations, including the United Nations, have condemned the siege as a form of collective punishment of the Palestinian people, which is banned under international law and treaties signed by Israel.
On Saturday, the Egyptian government reiterated their support for Israel, adding that they will assist the Israeli government in their policy of forced starvation of the population of Gaza, by cutting off sections of their own nation that border the Gaza Strip.
The Egyptians who live in Sinai will thus also be impacted, for their crime of living in an area near the border with Gaza.
According to the Egyptian government, by cutting off supplies to the Egyptian towns near Gaza, they will remove the temptation for the Palestinians in Gaza to break the border fence to try to obtain supplies, as they did on January 23.
The imprisoned population of Gaza has been prevented from leaving the Gaza Strip since the Hamas government was elected by the Palestinian people in January 2006. Israel has prevented food, medicine, humanitarian aid and medicine from entering the Gaza Strip, in addition to halting all commerce, import and export activity. As a result, the economy of the Gaza Strip has plummeted – unemployment rates are around 90%, and the entire population has become dependent on foreign aid that Israel refuses to allow them to have. Malnutrition rates among children have skyrocketed, and hundreds of patients have died to to lack of medical care.
