Connection please? Haaretz links Gaza bomb blast to Israeli blockade

A Red Cross (or Red Crescent?) ambulance was blown up in Gaza today. Haaretz seeems to think this can be blamed on the Israeli "blockade." Presumably, if there was no blockade, the "resistance" forces would not target the evil ambulances. Or something.

 

Ami Isseroff

 

Last update - 18:33 04/02/2010       
Bomb blast rocks Gaza Red Cross convoy in possible attack
By Haaretz Service

An explosive device was detonated near a Red Cross convoy in the Gaza Strip, Army Radio reported on Thursday, adding that it had not yet been made clear whether the explosion was a premeditated attack.

 

No injuries were reported in the Gaza blast, the Army Radio report said and one of the armored vehicles was damaged.

 

The Hamas-ruled coastal enclave had been sealed off by both Israel and Egypt since Israel's invasion of the Strip during Operation Cast Lead early last year, although Israel has allowed the Red Cross to bring humanitarian aid into Gaza.
 

 

The explosion occurred just as the United States reportedly suggested to Israel that easing the Gaza blockade could help counter the fallout from the Goldstone report on alleged war crimes during Operation Cast Lead a year ago.

 

The U.S. message on the blockade was relayed last week when a Foreign Ministry delegation met in Washington with senior officials from the State Department and the White House. Much of the meeting dealt with steps that Israel could take to help the United States and others block the Goldstone report and prevent it from reaching the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

 

Last month, Hamas sharply criticized Egyptian President Hosny Mubarak's defense of his country's expanded fortifications on its border with the Gaza Strip, saying they aided Israel's efforts to stifle the Hamas-ruled territory.

 

"Mubarak's remarks defending the steel wall are an address on the blockade of 1.5 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip," Hamas spokesman Mushir al-Masri told reporters in Gaza City.

 

The Egyptian president's statements "contradict his earlier remarks that he would not allow the starvation of the Palestinian people in Gaza," al-Masri accused.

 

On Sunday Mubarak marked the national annual Police Day holiday by declaring: "Fortifications along our eastern border are a work of Egyptian sovereignty, and we refuse to enter into a debate with anyone [about them]."

 

A lucrative smuggling trade in basic commodities, contraband but also in weapons has taken root along the Gazan-Egyptian border since Egypt and Israel closed the territory's borders after Hamas took control of its security services nearly three years ago