UK Anti-Israel Demonstrators Demand to End Gaza Blockade

One year has passed since the savage Israeli attack on the Gaza Strip.

Photo: UK Anti-Israel Demonstrators Demand to End Gaza Blockade

UK Anti-Israel Demonstrators Demand to End Gaza Blockade

More than 1,400 Palestinians were killed in Operation Cast Lead, but author says the war damaged Israel's standing in international public opinion.

Since Palestinians in Gaza buried their loved ones - more than 1,400 people, almost 400 of them children - there has been little healing and virtually no reconstruction.

According to international aid agencies, only 41 trucks of building supplies have been allowed into Gaza during the year.

Promises of billions made at a donors' conference in Egypt last March attended by luminaries of the so-called "international community" and the Middle East peace process industry are unfulfilled, and the Israeli siege, supported by the US, the European Union, Arab states, and tacitly by the Palestinian Authority (PA) in Ramallah, continues, Aljazeera.net reports.

In the meantime, Britain has witnessed major anti-Israel demonstrations, as several hundred pro-Palestinian protesters rallied in front of the Israeli embassy in London.

The demonstrators condemned the deadly Israeli offensive and continued Israeli siege of the impoverished Gaza Strip, demanding an end to the 'inhuman' blockade.

"We continue to be outraged at the attacks on Gaza and the crimes against humanity that was committed there," Glen Secker from Jews for Justice for Palestinians said on Sunday.

The protesters who chanted "end the siege now", also held banners naming Saudi King Abdullah, Palestinian Authority chief Mahmoud Abbas and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak as accomplices in the massacre of Gazans.

A group of UK parliamentarians also took part in the protests, voicing concern for the Gaza siege, Press TV reports.

It was also reported, Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat accuses Israel of war crimes. "I think the most important thing now is how to provide international protection for the Palestinian people. The follow up here is that we want to insure the non-reoccurrence of such massacres against the Palestinian people," he said.

A United Nations commission also accused Israel of war crimes, prompting outrage in Jerusalem. Israel says the war was a legitimate act of self defense, launched in response to years of Palestinian rocket attacks.

Though the commission also accused Hamas of war crimes, Israeli spokesman Yigal Palmor describes its report as one-sided and biased. "The commission was really a farce of a U.N. fact-finding commission. It was not a real effort to seek the truth," he said.

Despite growing diplomatic isolation, Israel says the war achieved its goal: With the exception of isolated incidents, Palestinian rocket attacks have stopped, Voice of America reports.