Washington said on Monday that it was deeply concerned that thousands of Palestinians are stranded because Israel has closed a border crossing between Egypt and Gaza, in an apparent and rare rebuke of the Jewish state.
Washington avoided blaming any side and urged Egypt, the Palestinian Authority and Israel to find a way to allow Gazans to return home.
But it also emphasized the Palestinians' suffering and worried that the closure could hurt peacemaking.
Israel closed the Rafah border crossing, which it controls, on July 18, citing security reasons and saying it had information about a possible attack on or near the crossing.
The unusually long closure has drawn anger from Palestinians and criticism from rights groups, which say standards of hygiene are poor at the crowded crossing.
One woman gave birth to a baby girl while waiting.
"We are deeply concerned about it. It is a humanitarian problem that disturbs us," State Department spokesman Adam Ereli said.
"The burden and hardship being imposed upon Palestinians is problematic," he said.
"We are reiterating our call on all the parties to avoid taking steps or actions that undermine trust and create new obstacles to implementing the [peace] roadmap," he added.
Many Arabs accuse the US of favoring the Jewish state in brokering peace.
But the Bush administration, which rarely criticizes Israel, has sought to blunt such accusations by providing humanitarian aid for occupied areas and expressing its sensitivity to Palestinians' suffering.
Gaza's air and sea routes have been cut during a Palestinian uprising that began in 2000.
The crossing with Egypt is the only entrance and exit point for most Gazans into the sliver of land on the Mediterranean coast.
Israel regularly closes Rafah because of security alerts or army operations in the area, a stronghold of Islamic militants. But such closures rarely last more than a few days.
Israel has accused the Palestinian Authority of worsening the problem by rejecting an offer to let travelers use a crossing into Israel and then be brought home to Gaza.
Palestinians said they could not accept the Israeli proposal because it would let only 200 people a day reach Gaza.
The Bolivian government on Friday struck a deal with protesting miners, but was still grappling with blockades and demonstrations by other workers across La Paz. Other groups are still blocking access roads into the city, which is also the seat of the government. Police on Thursday prevented the miners from entering the main square by using tear gas, while the demonstrators hurled stones and explosives with slingshots. Protests against the policies of Bolivian President Rodrigo Paz have convulsed the Andean nation since early this month, and roadblocks were choking routes into La Paz throughout Friday, the national road authority said. Miners demanded that Paz
The Philippines said it has asked the country’s Supreme Court to allow it to arrest former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte’s chief drug war enforcer to stand trial in an international tribunal. The International Criminal Court (ICC) last week unsealed an arrest warrant against Philippine Senator Ronald dela Rosa, accusing him along with Duterte and other “coperpetrators” of the “crime against humanity of murder.” Dela Rosa briefly sought refuge in the Philippine Senate last week while asking the Philippine Supreme Court to stop an ongoing attempt by government agents to arrest him. “By his own conduct, he has placed himself outside the protection of
A ship anchored off the United Arab Emirates (UAE) was seized and taken toward Iran and another — a cargo ship near Oman — sank after being attacked, authorities said on Thursday, as tensions escalated near the Strait of Hormuz. It was not immediately clear who was behind these incidents, but they happened as a senior Iranian official reiterated his country’s claim of control over the waterway and another said it had a right to seize oil tankers connected to the US. The turmoil in the strait has been a sticking point for weeks in talks between the US and Iran to
Crowds in Bangladesh are flocking to snap photographs with an unlikely social media star — an albino buffalo with flowing blond hair nicknamed “Donald Trump” that is due to be sacrificed within days. Owner Zia Uddin Mridha, 38, said his brother named the 700kg bull over its flowing helmet of hair resembling the signature look of the US president. “My younger brother picked this name because of the buffalo’s extraordinary hair,” he said at his farm in Narayanganj, just outside the capital, Dhaka. Mridha said that a constant stream of curious visitors — social media fans, onlookers and children — have come throughout
RSS